Leeds set to dominate Premier League as Jaissle condemns £64m Newcastle pair | OneFootball

Mattias Jaissle isn’t the first manager, nor will he be the last, to rock up at Elland Road and underestimate the challenge of Leeds United under lights.

Under Daniel Farke, the Whites have won 19, drawn four and lost none of their games kicking off at 7.45pm or later. Jaissle suggested he was aware of the challenge in his pre-match press conference.

“It will be special,” Jaissle said. “I’ve heard many things. But if you face that and match that emotionally – and we have the support as well – then we can have a good result.”

They got bullied by the most Premier League team in the Premier League and crumbled in wholly predictable and embarrassing fashion.

Farke and the Leeds board have assembled a group of physical specimens that can roll a team over if given the opportunity to do so, and at Elland Road, when on your back it’s near impossible to stand back up again.

Ethan Ampadu and Anton Stach will fancy their chances against any opposition. They’re a genuinely excellent midfield duo; very difficult to contain at the top level they reach the vast majority of the time.

But you could almost sense them licking their lips and rubbing their hands together as poor 18-year-old Sean Steur entered the fray for Newcastle after 20 minutes as a concussion substitute for Nico Gonzalez.

Paired with Lewis Miley up against the strength and experience of Leeds’ midfield in a stadium baying for Magpie blood, the £23m summer signing endured a night to forget.

His was the first of two deflections from Ao Tanaka’s shot which gave Leeds the lead. Two minutes later it was his errant pass that was pounced upon before Dominic Calvert-Lewin climbed magnificently high to make it 2-0, via the head of Jayden Bogle.

Just as it was hard not to feel sorry for Steur, Matias Fernandez-Pardo – the £51m signing from Lille – quickly asserted himself as a footballer it will be difficult to root for on his full debut.

It didn’t really look like he was trying and when he did get the ball he resembled a child playing bigger boys football as he couldn’t wait to get rid of it in order to avoid getting a kick or a body blow. He completed five of his nine passes, had no shots and attempted no dribbles.

Knee-jerk and evidently unfair condemnation of a footballer’s character withstanding, Fernandez-Pardo’s first start for Newcastle coming away at Leeds on a Monday night suggests Jaissle really didn’t appreciate just what a Premier League force his side would be facing.

He might argue that he had little choice but to bring Steur on for Gonzalez as the only like-for-like replacement, but surely he could have asked a slightly square but more seasoned peg to play in a round hole to save the teenager from what he should have predicted would be a harrowing experience.

Sven Botman proved that elder statesmen aren’t immune to cowing under Leeds pressure as he made a frankly pathetic attempt to stop Calvert-Lewin barreling past him to score the third, before Noah Okafor made it four with a left-footed swinger from the edge of the box that he was as surprised as anyone went in off the post.

Leeds were almost comically dominant over an unprepared and underarmed Newcastle. And Farke’s side are well set to dominate the Premier League in general, not as challengers to Arsenal in a title race but as a group who will continue to outmuscle, outrun and outfight opposition teams.