Relegation required reinvention, but Leeds are now one step away from an immediate comeback

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For a club that exists in a state of permanent drama, Leeds United don’t get promoted very often. Their size may suggest that they should be an almost constant presence among the elite, but there were long periods of exile in the lower divisions.

They have only three top-flight promotions in the past nine decades; two of them under managers, in Don Revie and Howard Wilkinson, who would make them champions, the other under the iconoclast, the inimitable Marcelo Bielsa.

Daniel Farke may not normally be in brackets; may have little in common with two dogged Yorkshiremen whose different brands of toughness may have meant they are underappreciated outside Leeds, while Bielsa is a man of most things and a unique tactician who has led United in the top 10 of the Premier League. Farke doesn’t have their reputation yet; a promotion pundit took Norwich twice before but they went down immediately each time.

He would object to a characterization as a yo-yo manager, and as fluctuating as fortunes at Elland Road can be, Leeds are not the stereotypical yo-yo club. Not when their past has shown them they are capable of so much more.

But after one of Elland Road’s great nights, an extraordinary atmosphere allied to a magnificent performance, Norwich were demolished, Leeds 90 minutes from the Premier League, Farke a win away from chosen company.

“If you asked me in September if we’re going back after a year in the Premier League, I’d say ‘no chance’,” said the German. Because Leeds’ season started without a win in their first three games, just one in their first five. They had been decimated: partly by the departures that inevitably result from relegation, but partly as a result of former director of football Victor Orta’s misguided policy of giving players contract clauses allowing them to leave on loan in the event of relegation.

Out, one way or another, are Robin Koch, Diego Llorente, Brenden Aaronson, Rasmus Kristensen, Marc Roca, Maximilian Wober, Jack Harrison, Tyler Adams, Rodrigo and Luis Sinisterra. Leeds have loaned footballers costing them more than £100m. Of the 10 players who started 20 Premier League games last season, seven are gone.

Farke was starting from scratch, stocked with a couple of new signings, aided by youthful talent in the ranks – and Crysencio Summerville bursting to excel in the lower league – with Leeds benefiting from the parachute payments on offer but hampered by the burden of expectations. and the problems of their history. Champions in the last year before the start of the Premier League, they have spent 17 of the last 20 seasons outside it.

If relegation required reinvention, Farke sensed an opportunity at Leeds. It’s part of its allure. The romantic of Bielsa did it too; so does businessman Andrea Radrizzani, the former owner, and his successors, the San Francisco 49ers.

Farke presented himself as an equally ambitious figure. “No one is more greedy than me to get back to the first level,” he said. “I want to return to the best league in the world as soon as possible. I wouldn’t have signed for any other club in this league because the last time I was in it, we won it. Last season I was in the German Bundesliga, I prepared for matches against big clubs like Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.”

Next season, he may be preparing for matches with the clubs Manchester, Arsenal and Liverpool. This was felt in doubt when, after rising from 15th at the start of September to first in March, Leeds won just one of their last six league games. They have found tragicomic ways to not get promoted in the past. History threatened to repeat itself.

Now Farke can challenge his team to become Leeds legends, join Revie’s team of 1964, Wilkinson’s team of 1990 and Bielsa’s class of 2020. And, in a different way, join the less famous side of Dick Ray from 1932; they were the last Leeds team to win promotion the year after relegation. “Going back to the first time you asked would be great,” Farke said.

Given the finances involved, it has added importance. There would be consequences if not; Summerville, for one, have certainly reached a standard that means they won’t be in the Championship next season.

Farke signed a long-term contract, partly because he knew promotion was not a formality in the first year. “If we actually do it, we can talk about how difficult it was,” Farke said. “It is too early for praise and self-love.”

Far too early, too, for him to replicate the full impact of Bielsa, let alone Wilkinson and Revie, but he could soon be a fourth member of their select band. As Farke said: “We have a great chance to write another chapter in history at this amazing club.”