At the start of December, Leeds United head coach Daniel Farke looked on course to lose his job at Elland Road after a poor run of results in the Premier League.
The Whites lost six of their seven league matches in October and November and were due to play Chelsea and Liverpool in their first two games of December.
It was reported by The Telegraph that senior officials at Elland Road expected Farke to be sacked if he failed to pick up positive results against the two Champions League sides.
Leeds went on to beat Chelsea 3-1 and held reigning champions Liverpool to a 3-3 draw in those two matches, which triggered an impressive run of form for the club.
Since that report by The Telegraph, the Whites have only lost four of their last 24 matches in all competitions, and made it to the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
The tactical change that saved Daniel Farke’s job at Leeds United
Farke tried to adapt his system from the Championship to the Premier League by moving from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3 formation, but it did not work in the first few months of the campaign, hence the run of six losses in seven games.
The 3-1 win over Chelsea was the first time that the German head coach started a match with a three-defender formation, playing a 3-5-2 against the Blues.
As aforementioned, Leeds have only lost four of their last 24 games since making that change in system, and their Premier League record with a 3-4-2-1 or 3-5-2 formation speaks for itself.
|
Farke’s impactful system change |
||
|---|---|---|
|
25/26 PL |
4-3-3 |
3-4-2-1 / 3-5-2 |
|
Games |
14 |
19 |
|
Wins |
3 |
6 |
|
Draws |
2 |
10 |
|
Losses |
9 |
3 |
|
Points |
11 |
28 |
|
Points per game |
0.79 |
1.47 |
The points per game difference between the spell playing 4-3-3 and the current run of games playing 3-4-2-1 or 3-5-2 show that Farke saved his job with that tactical tweak, as the results have helped Leeds to move clear of the bottom three.
He reacted and adapted with his job on the line, rather than stubbornly sticking to his guns, and it has saved his job and potentially saved the club.
Several players have also benefitted from the change in formation, with one star emerging as a hybrid of former Leeds stars Patrick Bamford and Raphinha.
Daniel Farke has unearthed a Raphinha and Patrick Bamford hybrid for Leeds
When the Whites avoided relegation under Marcelo Bielsa in the 2020/21 campaign, Raphinha and Bamford combined for 23 goals and 16 assists in the Premier League.
Now, thanks to Farke’s change in formation, Swiss attacker Noah Okafor is starting to look like a hybrid of the Brazilian and English stars with his performances in the top-flight.
Signed from AC Milan for £18m last summer, the forward endured a slow start to life at Elland Road with two goals and no assists in his last 23 appearances for the club.
However, since Farke started playing him as one of the two tens behind Dominic Calvert-Lewin in a 3-4-2-1 system, Okafor has scored four goals and provided three assists.
His form in an attacking midfield position, rather than out wide, shows that Farke’s tactical tweak has turned him into a monster in the final third, and it has helped him to look like a Raphinha and Bamford hybrid.
Like Raphinha, Okafor is a direct and pacey player who likes to try things and take people on, as evidenced by his 1.3 completed dribbles per game in the Premier League this season.
However, playing more centrally has also allowed him to show off his natural goalscoring instincts in the box. He has a terrific sense of where to be in the box for chances to come his way, like for his first goal against Manchester United last week.
Five of his seven Premier League goals have been scored from 12 yards out or closer, central to the goal, and only one of his seven goals came from outside of the box, which was his volley at Old Trafford.
He has poacher-like movement around the goalmouth, just as Bamford did during his time with the club, particularly in his first Premier League season, and has emerged as a reliable scorer in recent weeks because of that.
Farke has, therefore, hit the jackpot with Okafor because he has turned a flashy winger into an output machine in the number ten position this season, making him a hybrid of two brilliant former Leeds stars.
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