{"id":427875,"date":"2026-05-02T00:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T00:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/427875\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T00:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T00:50:09","slug":"leeds-prove-doubters-wrong-as-stach-leads-farkes-survival-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/427875\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeds prove doubters wrong as Stach leads Farke’s survival charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

No Leeds signing has been more successful than the brilliant Anton Stach, who marked his return to the starting XI with a belting goal \u2013 his fifth in the Premier League this season and fourth from outside the box \u2013 in Friday\u2019s 3-1 win over already-relegated Burnley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The German is a fantastic player who could go down as the Premier League signing of the season<\/a> when it\u2019s all said and done. It\u2019s probably between him and Sunderland captain Granit Xhaka, though Manchester City maverick Rayan Cherki might have something to say about that.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

Stach missed Leeds\u2019 last three Premier League games before Friday\u2019s clash with Michael Jackson\u2019s Bad Burnley side, and while Farke\u2019s 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 \u2013 moving them nine clear of 18th-placed Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n

Not only are they essentially safe from relegation, but Leeds are now above Newcastle United \u2013 a club that reached the Champions League last 16 this season \u2013 with 43 beautiful points on the board.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 giving Farke his due as an excellent Championship manager, but not one capable of keeping a club in the top flight.<\/p>\n

Only three wins from Leeds\u2019 opening 13 Premier League fixtures left the latter feeling smug, yet the club\u2019s hierarchy held their nerve when many others would have pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n

As Stuart Dallas put it:<\/p>\n

\u201cDaniel Farke deserves an enormous amount of credit for what he has done this season, but so do the Leeds hierarchy for sticking with him. Before that performance at Man City it was a really sticky patch and they could easily have got rid of him. They stuck with him and he has repaid them.\u201d<\/p>\n

They have been vindicated, and on the night Premier League survival was (all but) secured, three summer signings won Leeds the game \u2013 with the pick of the bunch getting things started with a superb strike.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t Wanna Be Startin\u2019 Something, because not every player at a club outside the \u2018Big Six\u2019 has to move to one of them, but he is absolutely good enough to become a significant Leeds sale to a Champions League side.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He should certainly be in the same conversation as Adam Wharton and Carlos Baleba.<\/p>\n

Leeds fans will tell us to Beat It \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Plenty of Leeds signings have done exactly that, and the board deserve more credit than they have been given.<\/p>\n

The widespread praise is for sticking with Farke \u2013 an inspired decision that the German head coach has rewarded with another year in the big time.<\/p>\n

Safe. Above Newcastle and Spurs. And Leeds have one of the best midfielders in the league.<\/p>\n

Friday was a good night. 2025\/26 has been a good season.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Big Weekend: Man United v Liverpool, Tottenham, Viktor Gyokeres, Andoni Iraola, Oliver Glasner<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u2019s Premier League safety secured for Leeds United, who are vindicated on two fronts: keeping Daniel Farke and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26699,13717,3708,10287,42,1100,15140,43,1102,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-427875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-anton-stach","tag-burnley","tag-f365-features","tag-f365-says","tag-headlines","tag-home-page","tag-leeds-united","tag-news","tag-premier-league","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}