With Leeds United still fighting at the bottom end of the table, 15 games into their second Premier League season, it may be time to accept that last season’s surge towards European football is unlikely to be repeated. I’ve remained optimistic that things will click and the Whites will fly up the table, but the Leeds of 2021/22 have rarely appeared capable of reaching the standards they set last season, when an elevation in motivation was coupled with the momentum and euphoria of promotion. It is a well-known phenomenon in football, they call it ‘Second Season Syndrome’, though I think ‘First Season Syndrome’ would be more fitting.

Grown man injures himself knee sliding and then gives away shirt to rule breaker. Crowd goes wild

Brentford’s trip to Elland Road was the perfect opportunity to see how far we have come in the 18 months since promotion, and just like our battles in the Championship, it was a tight game and a late goal saved our bacon. It wasn’t a terrible performance, but it was a far cry from the swashbuckling Leeds side that lit up the Premier League from behind closed doors, and if it felt like watching our Championship selves it was probably because we were. Phillips, Klich and Forshaw was the midfield for both Brentford home games under Bielsa, and Dallas, Cooper, Harrison, Bamford, Ayling and Roberts all were there too. So was Pontus, for one team or the other, and Meslier was on the bench in 2019, but still coming up through the Thorp Arch ranks in 2018, if you believe Michael Owen’s expertise. Since waving goodbye to the Championship the personnel in the squad has changed (it’s only a month since I was writing about a team in transition!), but the fact we are still trusting the ‘old-guard’ suggests the recruitment has been lacking. Llorente has been an excellent replacement for Ben White and Raphinha has successfully filled the boots of Pablo Hernandez – praise doesn’t come higher than that. Koch for Berrardi currently equates to one injured centre-back for another, James is a definite upgrade on Costa, Firpo remains under the microscope, and Rodrigo has so far been a dud. It’s not bad recruitment, but until Koch is fit, Firpo has settled, and Rodrigo proves himself to be the player we have only seen in glimpses, we have spent £140m to tread water.

Some people have suggested our drop in form this season is due to Bielsa trading his high intensity tactics for a more ‘pragmatic’ approach. It is true we are conceding less goals and drawing more games, but I put this down to an attacking unit that is out of form, rather than a change in approach. I refuse to believe Bielsa would abandon his philosophy. That said, against Brentford there was a distinct lack of pressing in the first half, with Roberts virtually playing as a ‘false 9’ and enabling the Brentford defence to dawdle around at the back unchallenged (I accidentally caught evidence of this when trying to take a nice photo of Pontus). A period of pressing dispossessed the Brentford back line and led to the first goal, but it was a rare occurrence. Was it by design, or by confusion due to the chopping and changing of player’s positions? I sincerely hope it was the latter.

When comparing two seasons you can’t just concentrate on one of them, and I do wonder whether we look back at 2020/21 with rose-tinted glasses, after all, we spent the whole season in the bottom half of the table, and would have spent much of it flirting with the relegation zone if the bottom four hadn’t had such awful starts (collectively they’d registered only two wins after matchday nine). By February we were looking nervously over our shoulders after four defeats in five games, but we eventually finished ninth after a sensational run-in, winning the last four games against already-relegated West Brom, and already-on-the-beach Burnley, Southampton and Spurs. I don’t mean to discredit our record-breaking achievements last season, but it wasn’t always sunshine and flowers. Knowing perception to be unreliable evidence, I checked the cold hard stats and was shocked to find that Boring Boring Leeds have had the fourth most shots in the Premier League this season, whereas last season’s Kamikaze Leeds had the fifth most. For number of crosses, last season we were second, this season fifth, and for number of passes we were eighth and now seventh. We remain number one for tackles, but the most important stat in football is goals, and from scoring the sixth most last season, we have now scored the sixth least. Everyone knows that goals change games, so, 766 words later, maybe Bamford was the answer all along! He was certainly the answer on Sunday, earning us a point that feels vital now but will hopefully be irrelevant by May. Or preferably April.

Maybe we’re just looking too deep into questions that have no answers, ‘football’s many secrets’, as Marcelo Bielsa recently touched upon; mysteries that will remain unsolved long after The Great Man’s feet no longer walk upon Yorkshire’s pleasant pastures. Football is a funny old game, and we’ll have our ups and downs. Maybe that’s the brunt of it.

133 | Leeds vs Brentford & FIRST SEASON SYNDROME?