Something has gone terribly right at Leeds United

Daniel Storey Sport Feature Writer of the Year.

Key points

• Since that start of December 2025, Leeds rank sixth in the Premier League, a point behind a Liverpool side that qualified for the Champions League in May.
• In 2014, at 10pm, the club's official Twitter account teased supporters by telling them "Don't go to bed just yet".
• There is a regular misdiagnosis that Leeds United need chaos to exist simply since it enveloped them for so long and so tightly.
• There are times as a Leeds supporter when you believe everything is conspired against you.
• This year we should expect far less drama in the final hours of the window.

With apologies to Peter Odemwingie and his car park vigil, and the bloke who waved a sizeable sex toy in the face of a Sky Sports presenter, Leeds United own the iconic Deadline Day memory. In 2014, at 10pm, the club's official Twitter account teased supporters by telling them "Don't go to bed just yet".

Meanwhile, the major news? Leeds sold two first-team strikers in the next hour, went through three different managers that season (including two spells for Neil Redfearn), finished 15th in the Championship and their top goalscorer in all competitions was Mirco Antenucci with 10.

It was a perfect piece of Leeds United theatre, a distillation of their modus operandi of promise with no delivery and a dose of emotionally blackmailing supporters thrown in. There are times as a Leeds supporter when you believe everything is conspired against you. And there are times when you can believe the club itself is in on the dark joke at your expense. Supporters owned it. Don't Go To Bed Yet is the name of a fan podcast.

This year we should expect far less drama in the final hours of the window. While it seems like everybody else is either in a post-World Cup rush or undergoing enforced rebuild, Leeds United are arguably the Premier League's most emphatic continuity club. They have sold one player that anyone really cared regarding – Pascal Struijk. They have upgraded their goalkeeper (Karl Darlow to James Trafford) and their creative midfield influence (Jack Harrison to Harry Wilson).

Craving continuity was absolutely the right call. Since that start of December 2025, Leeds rank sixth in the Premier League, a point behind a Liverpool side that qualified for the Champions League in May. Daniel Farke is the third longest-serving manager in the top flight and it's only over the last five months that there is universal approval of his continued worth.

There is a regular misdiagnosis that Leeds United need chaos to exist simply since it enveloped them for so long and so tightly. It's not true, obviously, simply an emotional coping mechanism to persuade yourself that everything will be alright. Every football club works better when its component parts are pulling – or being pulled – in the same direction. The last time that was the case: the Marcelo Bielsa years.

Farke additionally arrived at the plan to save his own skin at an opportune moment. Although it took Farke a number of months to maximise their qualities, they deliberately focused on the signing of tall physical players last summer (their first seven averaged above 6ft 2in). For the second half of last season, he changed the formation but additionally changed the style, preferring intense physicality to nippy wingers. When Struijk left for Brighton this summer, they replaced him with someone an inch taller. It is clearly working. It's Major Bastard FC.

Taken together, the developments around something has gone terribly right at Leeds United point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.