Farke’s changes serve the purpose in the first stage of the manual, while the hottest “front game” awaits Leeds

The oldest prank in the book took place on Sunday when fireworks went off around Sprowston Hall, the hotel used by Leeds United ahead of their play-off semi-final first leg at Norwich City. An explosion was heard around 1am and another closer to 4am, followed by a wait to see if the money burned was money well spent.

Inside the mansion, Leeds were only vaguely disturbed, but on the evidence of the month behind them, a loud bang to rouse their team wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. None of the Championship clubs involved in the play-offs went into them at the speed of a train, but Leeds more than any other were at risk of sleepwalking in a scenario where the sharpest senses were needed. Daniel Farke kept calling them the best team below the top two, but from day 38 onwards, they looked less and less alike.

Farke can generally count on a warm reception in Norwich, but not on weekends like this, and not at a time of year when managers prefer to be on the beach, physically, metaphorically and spiritually. His two league titles at Norwich, in 2019 and 2021, were so comprehensive that the players he coached there didn’t even have to show interest in the play-offs, but it was his old club against his current one his club in the semi-final. yesterday, hence the welcome party outside the hotel in Leeds. The play-offs are no place for feelings and no sacred cows; sacrifice or be sacrificed.

Rutter played at No.9 in Bamford’s absence (Stephen Pond/Getty Images)

Nor, Farke said on Friday, was it the time for a manager to bet on a beaten tactical track, but either that comment was a strategic bluff or the temptation to screw Norwich up at the last minute. When his line-up went down at Carrow Road, he showed a sudden change in tact: Archie Gray played at 10 with Georginio Rutter in front of him, making redundant any doubt that Joel Piroe could pull up his socks at No.9. was designed to do in an attacking sense was debatable, but it served its purpose in getting Leeds out of the first leg with a goalless draw, composure restored and their chance of promotion very much unscathed. “We wanted our defensive stability back,” Farke said, and rightfully so, it was the number one priority.

The risk of trying something new while the stakes are high spoke for itself. It could just as easily represent a manager under pressure taking a goal as it could a stroke of genius, and ultimately Farke’s strategy fell between the two chairs. In his defense, it wasn’t as if the logic of the tactical changes required much explanation. Of late, Piroe up front has left Leeds without a reliable outlet, limiting their attacking possession and hampering their patterns of play. A knee injury deprived Farke of Patrick Bamford as an alternative. Meanwhile, the midfield sank like the Titanic against Southampton eight days earlier, warranting an extra body alongside Glen Kamara and Ilia Gruev. The formation was based on rational thinking. It just wasn’t Leeds the way Farke usually builds them.

Part of him must have wondered if, on the form Leeds had shown at Queens Park Rangers and Southampton, the first leg at Norwich had the potential to decide it all; that if Leeds had been as weak as they were in the Championship finals, they might lose the tie there and then. What he got at Carrow Road, and what he would have been satisfied with beforehand, was a textbook first-leg semi-final in which neither team took undue risks, neither team was bold enough to- and played the biggest cards and neither team came away with a great superiority. after possession passed from Norwich before the break to Leeds after it.

“All the cards are still on the table,” said Norwich manager David Wagner, and they are. Convention says Farke have the edge now, in terms of parity after 90 minutes and a home game, but it’s never appropriate to say that. “It’s 50-50 and both sides have an equal chance,” insisted Farke. “I am satisfied with the performance. We can be complacent, but everything is still possible.”

How much Farke regrets Leeds’ reluctance to kill themselves in pursuit of a goal yesterday depends entirely on the second leg. The playoffs tend to work like this: the value of a team’s initial performance is dictated entirely by the result after the second. Gray has supported Farke’s midfield without unleashing too much attacking fire on Norwich, but Rutter, like Piroe, is looking for his own epiphany after returning from a hernia operation in March with his verve depleted. He swung and missed a good chance in the first inning. Sam Byram swung and missed an equally good one in the second. Junior Firpo pounced on a Shane Duffy error but saw an offside flag go up as he slotted the ball into the net. Norwich’s Josh Sargent let a cross bounce off his shoulder eight yards out and Gabriel Sara did nothing to get the ball out for him 14 yards out. Small forays aside, that was it.

Part of Farke’s enduring optimism has to do with what he calls “front-end games,” data that are rising in a division that’s too long to avoid its share of loud games. His perception is that Leeds have their measure, a perception based on the fact that they have taken 12 points from the two clubs who finished above them in the Championship, Leicester City and Ipswich Town. Certain results belied this, however, and none more so than the 4-0 defeat at QPR, which made a meeting with Norwich inevitable. Thursday at Elland Road promises more fireworks than Carrow Road had yesterday, more fireworks and then some. In his time as a coach, Farke may never have experienced such a hot spotlight.

(Top photo: Stephen Pond/Getty Images)