Leeds’ double gamble pays off as Farke and Stach secure Premier League safety | OneFootball

That’s Premier League safety secured for Leeds United, who are vindicated on two fronts: keeping Daniel Farke and backing a summer transfer window that has aged from questionable to quietly decisive.

No Leeds signing has been more successful than the brilliant Anton Stach, who marked his return to the starting XI with a belting goal – his fifth in the Premier League this season and fourth from outside the box – in Friday’s 3-1 win over already-relegated Burnley.

The German is a fantastic player who could go down as the Premier League signing of the season when it’s all said and done. It’s probably between him and Sunderland captain Granit Xhaka, though Manchester City maverick Rayan Cherki might have something to say about that.

All three have been brilliant in their own right, but the influence Xhaka and Stach have had on promoted teams cannot be understated.

They are the two biggest reasons Sunderland and Leeds have managed to avoid the drop, when the previous six promoted sides had all gone straight back down to the Championship.

Stach missed Leeds’ last three Premier League games before Friday’s clash with Michael Jackson’s Bad Burnley side, and while Farke’s men coped surprisingly well without their star midfielder, his return gave them a huge boost on a night where survival would be all but secured with three points – moving them nine clear of 18th-placed Tottenham Hotspur.

Not only are they essentially safe from relegation, but Leeds are now above Newcastle United – a club that reached the Champions League last 16 this season – with 43 beautiful points on the board.

They have shown incredible mettle during the run-in, going six games unbeaten when they could easily have crumbled under the pressure of relegation. Yet Leeds have been proving people wrong all season.

Farke could have gone in the summer, despite guiding Leeds to promotion as Championship winners, but the board kept faith in a man who had been relegated in each of his previous two Premier League campaigns with Norwich City.

The idea of sacking a manager on the back of a 100-point promotion season was rightly branded bloody silly by most, though some argued it might have been a savvy call – giving Farke his due as an excellent Championship manager, but not one capable of keeping a club in the top flight.

Only three wins from Leeds’ opening 13 Premier League fixtures left the latter feeling smug, yet the club’s hierarchy held their nerve when many others would have pulled the trigger.

As Stuart Dallas put it:

They have been vindicated, and on the night Premier League survival was (all but) secured, three summer signings won Leeds the game – with the pick of the bunch getting things started with a superb strike.

Stach deserves all the praise he is getting and, naturally, you wonder why clubs are not already circling ahead of a huge summer transfer window, with central midfielders high on so many shopping lists.

We don’t Wanna Be Startin’ Something, because not every player at a club outside the ‘Big Six’ has to move to one of them, but he is absolutely good enough to become a significant Leeds sale to a Champions League side.

Not only is he a presence in midfield and a goal threat, but Stach also has a wonderful set-piece delivery, which is so valuable in the modern Premier League.

He should certainly be in the same conversation as Adam Wharton and Carlos Baleba.

Leeds fans will tell us to Beat It – and rightly so. They want to keep hold of their best players, especially someone who has made such an impact in his first year in England.

Plenty of Leeds signings have done exactly that, and the board deserve more credit than they have been given.

The widespread praise is for sticking with Farke – an inspired decision that the German head coach has rewarded with another year in the big time.

Safe. Above Newcastle and Spurs. And Leeds have one of the best midfielders in the league.