Scars make it beautiful as Leeds deliver

Willy Gnonto was distraught after the 4-1 home defeat to Tottenham which saw Leeds relegated from the Premier League in May 2023

Scar tissue from how it ended last time around in the Premier League in 2023 meant that promotion has felt quite different two years on.

The prolonged absence from the top flight, coupled with the club's biggest moment since winning the First Division title in 1992 being constrained in a Covid bubble, made the Marcelo Bielsa-era even more idiosyncratic.

We couldn't share the moment communally once Bielsa's side had tossed Charlton aside 4-0 as an almost irrelevant prelude to lifting the Championship trophy at a sadly empty Elland Road.

Leeds were no longer falling apart, they were back in the joy division.

But it wasn't joyful. Bar that exquisite period when behind closed doors Leeds United finished ninth in the top flight, the experience was eventually to leave the club and players shell-shocked. That is why, for some, there will be a sense of concern ahead of a crucial summer at Elland Road.

The moment of promotion, delayed by the increasingly staggered kick-offs of the crucial fixtures, was still sweet this time around though. The manner of the complete obliteration of an in-form Stoke City was spectacular... and so un-Leedsy. Until that point four straight victories had not happened all season across league and cup competitions. When it mattered, United delivered.

Bielsa's extraordinary capability of coaching an average Championship side to greatness will always stand alone as a unique and beautiful moment. Due to the circumstances in which his success was secured it also makes it mean more this time because supporters celebrated together, drank together, cried together, hugged together but most of all bellowed out Marching on Together.

If Marcelo performed a miracle then Daniel Farke produced a phenomenon.

Calm, concentrated and composed Farke created two new sides, with this version less reliant on individual moments of brilliance than a collective creativity and a mental resilience than that of 2024.

It feels like a vindication of his method and his ability to cope with obstacles, like selling or losing key players ahead of a campaign, and a reflection of the laser focus of the squad to redeem last season's play-off disappointment.

So to Monday night and that rare feeling of an end of season game at Elland Road without jeopardy for the hosts, as promotion hopefuls Bristol City come in search of the one win which will secure them a play-off berth.

Make no mistake though, Farke and his side want that 100-point total and the title so after the lights of this week's party have faded and the "fire beast" has come down from the table, the fire will be back in Farke's belly.

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