In his latest column for leedsunited.com, lifelong supporter Jon Howe gives his own perspective on the start to the season for the Whites. 

Howe is the author of two books on the club, ‘The Only Place For Us: An A-Z History of Elland Road’ - which has been updated as a new version for 2021 - and ‘All White: Leeds United’s 100 Greatest Players’ in 2012.



If money is what fuels football, then the energy spent talking about it certainly gives the industry some momentum. The BBC’s ‘Fever Pitch – the Rise of the Premier League’ documentary series has amply demonstrated how primitive and past-its-sell-by-date the media coverage was in 1992. And this was still very much the case in 2004, when Leeds United waved goodbye to the Premier League like a troubled teenager off to a gap-year retreat in Goa to “find themselves”, but which turned into something quite different.

At least that was still the case in 2004 compared to now. We thought we had been exposed to the endless stream of media platforms, channels and territories via our voyeuristic perch in the Championship, but that was nothing compared to the constantly recurring sound-clash and the echoing din of actually living inside it. “It” being the Premier League bubble, where you feel exposed and vulnerable to scrutiny and dissection even when you’re asleep, because this is an insatiable, global beast that is always hungry for more.

This media animal can often present different realities, positioned accordingly to appeal to what creates the most interest and/or outrage. As football fans we are well practiced in the art of seeing facts or seeing incidents and processing them in our minds to suit our preference. We might be able to step aside from our obvious bias and see something impartially and for what it is, but we wouldn’t necessarily admit it openly. 

So last season we might have looked at the bottom of the Premier League table from our lofty position after four games and felt that all those teams looked doomed to a campaign of desperately scrapping for their lives, while this season we look at it and think “it’s only four games in, everything can change and there’s no need to panic”.

Of course both these things can be true. But there is no escaping the click-hungry, ‘like’-fishing pressure of social media, fan channels and radio phone-ins desperate to twist the facts and feed your paranoia like a devil on your shoulder.

Those facts are that Leeds have so far played three of the current top four, and have been beaten only by Liverpool and Manchester United. The manner of those defeats was not dissimilar to a number we suffered last season, and in fact, arguably, you could say that had our first four fixtures fallen differently last season – rather than including actually quite accommodating fixtures versus Fulham and Sheffield United - we could have been sat fourth from bottom then also, and in a legitimate state of alarm.

We know now that plentiful wins followed, and there is more than enough evidence to suggest that we will see the same this season. But for now we have to don the crash helmet and bite our lips until they bleed, while the football world endlessly debates “Is Bielsa a myth?” Or “Has Leeds’ bubble burst?” And if I hear the words ‘second season syndrome’ or ‘Bielsa burnout’ one more time I genuinely don’t know what will happen. 

The important point to remember is that nobody with any rational grip on reality looks at the table until the end of October, by which time Leeds will have played Newcastle, West Ham, Watford, Southampton, Wolves and Norwich. Even the most frenziedly prejudiced Leeds United-sceptic would reluctantly admit that then would be a fairer juncture at which to judge this side and its prospects for the season, and therefore I would certainly advocate that Leeds fans do the same. 

Every season there is a team that flies out of the blocks in the first four games, and triggers an avalanche of hilarity over potential Champions League qualification, when in reality they incongruously reside in the top four like the only person given a fancy dress invite to a black tie dinner. Football’s natural order will gradually take hold, and a similar scenario unfolds at the bottom, albeit, Leeds United’s position in the Premier League’s food chain is still open to debate.    

That has been abundantly demonstrated by the defeats to Liverpool and Manchester United. And given the outlay spent by Chelsea and Manchester City this summer too, it appears that the top four are definitely flexing their muscles to keep the riff-raff at arms length, but also that the levelling aspect of the peculiar ‘COVID’ season of 2020/21 must never be allowed to happen again. That led to the ignominy of the eventual Champions losing six games, and the occasions in which Liverpool and Chelsea were turned over were almost in double figures. For clubs with Super League pretensions, we simply can’t have that……………. Indeed, you sense that the only games the big four will lose this season will be to each other, and an impenetrable mini-Super League of vacuum-packed sterility effectively already exists. 

Another way in which football fans can make judgements too soon, and how partisanship can skew how you see something, was in evidence this week with Pascal Struijk’s tackle on Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott, which led to a red card for the central defender, and the endless fallout from it. I don’t need to add anything to the wealth of content that already exists on this subject, or the various rants that have flowed into the sewage farm of radio archives, except to say that the tackle looked fine from the stands, until we saw the red card and assumed it must have been really bad. And then we got home and saw the actual clip of the tackle.

The moral of the story is that we shouldn’t judge anything too quickly. That applies to tackles we can’t properly see, but also new signings finding their feet and fledgling league campaigns. Undoubtedly the COVID season produced some strange performances and perhaps disproportionately raised expectations, but with fans back in stadiums, any benefit Leeds might have gained from that last season will level itself up over the course of this one, and obviously we haven’t become a poor team overnight.

Watching games in the flesh again has really opened our eyes to how good the elite teams are. Certainly football seemed a lot more fun on the telly. But equally, it shows how good Leeds were last season to even live with these teams, we just weren’t there to appreciate it in real time. 

There is still a massive gap between the top four and the chasing pack, and progress for clubs like Leeds United has to be more gradual, with season-on-season solidity and security as a Premier League club. Amongst that, we might spring the odd surprise result against the top four – particularly if we can ever field a settled defence – but our key battles are definitely elsewhere. 

So in the first four games of this Premier League season we have seen the very best of the opposition in the flesh. I can’t say it’s been enjoyable, but that’s how the fixtures have fallen. Now it’s time to remember how far we have come and to ignore what judgements people have already made, and to see the very best of Leeds United in the flesh.