Leeds United bringing a familiar look to Premier League

When football is one never-ending money-chase it is pushing it to see today as the start of anything. For Leeds United in particular, their first Premier League game of 2021-22 does not feel like the beginning of much, just the next chapter in an extraordinary storyline. That is precisely what is causing tingles of excitement over this morning’s cornflakes.

Why would you want something new when the last two seasons were so exhilarating?

After the last campaign morphed straight into the European Championship/Copa America, then Olympics, and as soon as that finished the new Football League season, the Premier League circus is back in town.

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The curtain actually came up at Brentford last night but it felt like a “soft launch”, a warm-up act. Today is the first day that ends with that sweetest sound, the season’s first Match of the Day theme tune.

Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa. Photo: Richard Sellers/PA Wire.Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa. Photo: Richard Sellers/PA Wire.
Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa. Photo: Richard Sellers/PA Wire.

The big day needs a big start, so it is no surprise the television crews are stalking Leeds at their old rivals Manchester United. The Red Devils are always big news but it is the Whites who became the team you could not take your eyes off last season.

There will be a new kit and a player making his debut after joining from Barcelona – not that one, obviously. Roared on by away fans for the first time since Hull City in February 2020, it will sound different but by and large there will be a reassuringly familiar sight about the visitors.

Apart from the odd outbreak of financial insanity it has been a subdued transfer market, verging on realistic, albeit with 17 shopping days to go. Even by those standards, Leeds have been quiet.

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Junior Firpo’s arrival from Barcelona is welcome but he was only their second-choice left-back. Kristoffer Klaesson has been bought to push Illan Meslier but the five-year contract the 21-year-old goalkeeper signed yesterday shows he will take some shifting. Beyond that, youngsters who might excite Leeds fans in seasons to come, but only after a long time building anticipation.

Tradition dictates the natives should be restless. Football supporters are usually Oliver Twisting unless we are getting more, more, more. But how Southampton fans must wish they were having a boring summer. Aston Villa’s are not jumping through hoops at having £100m of Manchester City’s money to spend, and Tottenham Hotspur’s will hope there is no cheque coming Daniel Levy’s way. Everton’s new manager is as welcome as a skunk at a garden party and we wait to find out if Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton Wanderers loyalists rue what they wished for when they grumbled last season.

Depressingly, it seems almost impossible for Leeds to win their first title since the days when English managers were allowed to. The European Cup winners who lacked a proper centre-forward have spent £97.5m on Romelu Lukaku, who they could have had for free if they had only had an attention span beyond the next matchday when he was in their youth team. Serie A champions Inter Milan were powerless to resist.

When Manchester City decided you can never have enough attacking midfielders, Sheikh Mansour bought England’s best substitute at Euro 2020, Jack Grealish. Either Harry Kane could join him or we could see more centre-forwardless City teams. If anyone can make that work it is Pep Guardiola but he showed in May’s Champions League final it is an if.

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Manchester United have thrown more money at their problems at centre-back and on the wing, but converting cash into silver has been difficult post-Ferguson. Liverpool will hope for more luck with injuries than they had last season or Leicester City have had since as the Foxes look to disrupt the established order.

Leeds will do that this season, maybe even today, but only via one-off insurgencies, not a prolonged assault.

They have followed a return to the Premier League which at times was so exciting it should have carried a health warning with a come-down of a transfer window. They are treading carefully, trusting in what they have not only in the first team, but beneath. There may only be a couple of squad reinforcements but there are tens of thousands on the terraces.

For Leeds, this new season will not be all that new at all, and that in itself is something to enjoy.

Football: Pages 2-4

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