In his latest column for leedsunited.com, lifelong supporter Jon Howe look at Sunday's upcoming match with Arsenal.

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.



When I was young the US TV programme ‘Dynasty’ was hugely popular and strangely addictive, despite it featuring, as I realise now many years later, the most grotesque and dreadfully unappealing characters imaginable. There was no hint that I could apply the word ‘dynasty’ to the biggest love of my life at the time, football. I was, after all, a 1980s Leeds United fan. But little did I know that I was actually living through a real life football dynasty in the 1980s and was just about to suffer another one.

Liverpool were dominating English and European football in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, passing the baton from Bill Shankly to Bob Paisley, to Joe Fagan and to Kenny Dalglish. They were quickly overtaken by Manchester United who then swept up between 1993 and 2013, and while they have won trophies since, have comprehensively lost their grip on domestic dominance and largely failed to replace Alex Ferguson to maintain their dynasty. At Leeds United, you could argue that the Revie era was a dynasty of sorts, except that we didn’t win anywhere near the number of trophies we should have done, and subsequently it was very quickly disassembled to leave only dusty memories and bitter regret.

The other famously long-serving manager in the modern era is Arsene Wenger, who was Arsenal boss between 1996 and 2018. While he won three Premier League titles and seven FA Cups, you couldn’t say Arsenal were the dominant force when Manchester United were in the middle of their own halcyon period, but Wenger did create a dynasty in some respects. And while Manchester United very swiftly discarded Ferguson’s blueprint and opted for big name managers in the forlorn hope of recapturing past glories, Arsenal have at least maintained a plan to some extent. Unai Emery didn’t work out as the immediate successor to Wenger, but you could at least see the thinking behind the appointment, while Mikel Arteta had the playing and coaching pedigree if not the managerial experience, but he was appointed with the intention and the belief that another long reign would follow.

In truth, there have been several occasions when the Arsenal board could have succumbed to the howls of derision from the rapidly emptying stands of the buoyancy-vacuum that is the Emirates Stadium, but they held firm, knowing, or at least hoping, that sooner or later Arteta would deliver the goods. It appears that time has come, albeit they are locking horns in the top two of this season’s Premier League with an immovable footballing machine that is displaying formidable heft.  

While the sense of entitlement of fans of the top six clubs regularly leaves a sour taste, and Arsenal’s ‘wilderness years’ are barely comparable to finding yourself marooned in League One on minus 15 points – and not forgetting the many clubs who have had it much worse than us and in some cases have even gone out of business altogether – it is generally agreeable to see a resurgent Arsenal, if only to make the top end of the Premier League more interesting and to add another club into the mix, and at least Arsenal are an institution of English football in the traditional sense.

To put it in fairly basic terms, we have fewer historical reasons to dislike Arsenal than some other clubs in the ‘big six’, even if we have suffered a litany of mainly unfortunate cup defeats to them dating back to 1983, and even if our league record against them over the same period isn’t much better.

Wenger’s fallow years as Arsenal manager saw him assemble a team with great artistic merit, but with all the backbone of an Angel Delight. Why have a shot on goal when you can pass the ball round the box another 20 times? And away from home you could set your watch by the time Arsenal would routinely implode and surrender like grated parmesan on a bowl of hot spaghetti. We were a long way from a pre-Strictly Tony Adams or the piercing menace of the fearsome Patrick Vieira.

But now, Arteta has built a squad with much more star quality about them and with the shape and mentality to match, and through gritted teeth we’ll admit they look the business.

How Arsenal have played over the years has formed their identity, and at the same time has become a comedy tag or a stick to beat them with. From ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’ and ‘boring, boring Arsenal’ to the superfluous fluff of the dog-end of Wenger’s era. George Graham was synonymous with a regimental offside trap which ground teams down and drained any joy from the game while they were also winning two league titles, and it was he that Leeds United turned to in 1996 to arrest their decline and maintain a pretence that we could build on Howard Wilkinson’s legacy and create a dynasty of our own.

Graham won’t ever be remembered fondly at Elland Road for the way in which he left – or at Arsenal probably, given that he brazenly absconded to Tottenham – but he was building a solid platform at Leeds which was then embraced by and flourished under former Arsenal legend David O’Leary. And it is perhaps lost in the midst of time – or completely disregarded because nothing tangible came of it - that Leeds’s most recent attempts at creating a dynasty had Arsenal’s DNA running right through the middle.

And so we arrive at Sunday and Mikel Arteta’s table-topping Arsenal visiting Elland Road for a Premier League fixture which poses many questions. Arsenal are undoubted favourites but Leeds are unbeaten at home and really need a win. Our wholesale 3-0 undressing of Chelsea has become the ubiquitous reference point that has been trotted out in recent weeks, almost with the tiresome regularity of TV commentators and pundits citing seven, 10 or 15 years since we played Valencia in the Champions League semi-final.

The Chelsea win has started to resemble a poisoned chalice and even Jesse Marsch mentioned last week, post-Crystal Palace, that it had triggered opposition sides to treat us differently, and it feels like only Leeds United could somehow turn such a great victory into a negative, and to the point where you almost wish it had never happened.

I’m being flippant of course; it was an amazing day and is still a very vivid and intoxicating memory despite the many weeks that have since passed. But Leeds need to remember how they prepared and performed against Chelsea, when Arsenal visit this weekend. We were near-perfect that day, and while it is natural to doubt whether we can rise to that level again given our results since, we have at least proved that we can do it and should be able to remember how we did it.

Arsenal may be in a good place right now, and in a better place than a sulky Chelsea were back in August, but they are a long way from being talked about as creating a dynasty again. Leeds should take heed that nothing is achieved after just nine games and that Arsenal are not necessarily the finished article and may yet retain some mental frailties of old.

When Leeds have delivered the goods under Jesse Marsch, it’s when backs have been against the wall and expectations have been low. And now feels like that time again.