It is fair to say, our return to the Premier League probably hasn’t been as successful as most of us would have hoped. Our recent 2-1 defeat at home to Aston Villa; a game in which we surrendered the lead, saw us slump into 18th on goal difference, with West Ham United – a team we beat 3-1 at Elland Road only weeks ago, just ahead of us. I really thought Daniel Farke’s face said it all at the final whistle against Villa.
Up until now, I’ve more or less been in the “give Farke a chance” camp, though now I’m not convinced. We really should have been two up at half time against Villa, though regardless the way we started the second half was poor.
We should have expected Villa to come out with all guns blazing and Farke should have warned the lads against this (if he did, it didn’t make much of an impact).
The thing is that I did feel sorry for Farke at the start of the season; he didn’t really get the backing from the board that he probably would have liked; I’m sure there are some players that he would have been eyeing and unfortunately these deals weren’t able to materialise.
It has been the same old story since the season started; we don’t have a striker to hit the back of the net consistently. At first I was encouraged by our defensive performances; it seemed like we were hard to score against.
Now, we seem to be conceding too many goals and going to sleep at crucial moments. We switched off against Villa and let them equalise, then gave away a needless free-kick from which they scored. I’ve no idea what Lucas Perri was doing and, why did we have a man lying down behind the wall? Perri is well over six foot and should be able to get down easily enough if Morgan Rogers had put it under.
The Board Needs To Make A Decision
I’m looking at our next few games with trepidation. Manchester City away from home could very well be a trouncing – especially if Erling Haaland is on form. We then host Chelsea and Liverpool and, again I’m not hopeful. Even Liverpool on a bad day just could be too good for us. By the end of next month we could well be down.
So, the board needs to take drastic action. I find it strange and I’m sure like many of you; frustrating to have to be in this position again. There are two scenarios and, we kind of have to aim for the first; survival. Is Farke the right manager to achieve this? On the balance of form, how the players are playing and responding, plus the games coming up, I’m thinking ‘no’.
The second scenario is that we more or less accept the fact that we get relegated and stick with Farke. This is where (as he has demonstrated on many occasions), he comes into his own. Granted we were unlucky not to come up in our first season back in the Championship, though we blew the league apart last season and Farke is probably one of the best at winning it while playing direct, attacking football.
If we weren’t going ahead with plans to expand the ground, I could just about settle with the second scenario, though we need to justify this considerable expense by staying in the Premier League then consolidating next season. Farke would be great at getting us back up, but I would have a new (quality) manager in place to take over before the season ends (kind of like what we did with Bielsa who then had three months to prepare the squad).
Of course, this is academic. Right now, there is well over half of the season left to play and many points to play for. The question is, do we do this with Farke or bring in a new manager?
