Football Daily | Have laudable Leeds left the chaos behind them?

THE DAMN FINE UNITED? It’s been quite the stomach-churning white-knuckle ride for Leeds United over the past decade. Their fans have been forced to endure more highs, lows, loops, corkscrews and rolls than a thrill-seeking visitor on Nemesis Reborn at Alton Towers. There have been b@nter eras, multiple owners, near-misses, promotions, relegations and managerial churn. The Marcelo Bielsa years will always be remembered as fondly as the Thomas Christiansen months have been erased from collective memory. Under Jesse Marsch, Leeds secured dramatic final-day Premier League survival at Brentford, before dropping through the trapdoor the following season despite the best efforts of the High Performance American and Lower Performance Javi Gracia and Big Sam Allardyce.

Three years ago, Leeds were taken over by 49ers Enterprises, a USA-based organisation. The group wants to expand their “brand into sports, entertainment and technology, leveraging team capabilities in marketing and operations.” Since then, Leeds have been improving steadily. On Monday night, they won 4-1 in a strong performance. For the first time in more than 10 years, this suggests a period of stability – though not complete calm – may last at Elland Road for at least a couple of weeks.

Under what the media now must call the [insert relevant day of the week here] night lights of Elland Road, Leeds didn’t just beat Newcastle — they thrashed them badly. Leeds were stronger, faster, hungrier and quicker to every ball. After they went 2-0 up, there was a long spell where they completely controlled the game. Newcastle’s players were left chasing shadows around the floodlit pitch. Newcastle then conceded two more goals before scoring a late consolation goal. Matthias Jaissle looked shocked by how poorly his team played under such pressure. “We couldn’t match the intensity and you see how difficult it can be to win a game in the Premier League,” said the German manager. His promising start as Eddie Howe’s successor could hardly have come to a more sudden halt.

Daniel Farke admits he prefers to celebrate a win quietly, with a hot drink and cake on his sofa. But Leeds were so dominant over Newcastle that he might have been tempted to show the excited side he has mentioned before instead. He said, “It’s important we stay humble, down to earth and can’t allow ourselves to be too big-time or too carried away.” This suggested he planned a quiet night in with a cup of tea and some fruit scones. Leeds moved above fellow title contenders Hull City into third place in the table. Many fans are likely to have celebrated more wildly than that after the match. Leeds supporters are hard to please, often for good reason, but they are happy with how the team is progressing. Next they will look ahead to two matches from now, when they travel to Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE Join Scott Murray from 8pm for hot Milk Cup minute-by-minute coverage of Liverpool 1-0 Tottenham, while Taha Hashim will be at the wheel for all the latest updates from Ipswich 1-3 Arsenal.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “We cannot conduct a serious analysis when death threats are involved. Something suspicious is happening and it needs to be investigated. The sport has been tainted. My goalkeeper received threats against his life, his wife and his mother – he was told that if he didn’t pay a specific sum or concede three goals, they would be killed” – Guabirá head coach Leonardo Egüez claims that Juan Manuel Ferrel received death threats before their 6-0 defeat by Club Always Ready in the Bolivian top flight. “Football must not be tainted,” said Club Always Ready’s legal adviser Marcelo Ortiz. “We will ask the public prosecutor’s office to investigate so that the sport’s integrity is preserved.”

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS After yet another VAR offside mess at the weekend (see yesterday’s Football Daily), the argument was about whether a player diving toward the goal counts as active or not. One reader has a suggestion to make this simpler: “After yet another VAR offside fiasco at the weekend (yesterday’s Football Daily), centering on whether a player diving towards the goal is active or not, can I suggest we take subjectivity out of the equation? We have this nice, already marked, box on the field which is used to decide how harshly punished a foul is. So can we not just say everyone in the penalty area is active, no matter what they’re doing, and judge offsides accordingly?” – Hugh Fordham.

Re: Arsenal demanding a meeting with Pro Ref after a penalty decision (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). It should write to Mikel Arteta and ask why he feels the need to repeatedly leave his technical area. After all, ‘it is unacceptable at this level’” – Deryck Hall.

Chris Brown’s comment that ‘Spurs’ front three right now pose about as much threat as a Muttley-SpongeBob-Sylvester the Cat trio’ (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) made me think of an obvious point: it is not Mr Lange and Mr Venkatesham who are in charge of player signings at Spurs, but Wile E Coyote. Spurs’ transfer strategy seems just as sound as all of Mr Coyote’s purchases from Acme Co in his own chases” – Peter Rehwaldt.

I have to disagree with Chris. A front three has never worked for Spurs. They should either play Muttley alone up front, similar to Clive Allen, where he could score about 49 goals a season if Spurs use the next transfer window well and he gets good service from midfield and the wings from Johnny Bravo (Hoddle) and Scooby Doo's Shaggy (Waddle). Or, Muttley could work well in a front two, paired with Fred (Sheringham), similar to Klinsmann. That would be a great strike partnership” – Dexter O’ Riordan.

If you have any letters, please send them to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today's letter of the day, which has no prize, goes to Peter Rehwaldt. You can find the rules for our competitions here, for the times when we run them.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING: The Football Weekly podcast team is back. They review the latest games from around Europe and talk about who should win the men's Ballon d'Or. There is also a new episode of Women's Football Weekly. It covers Chelsea's strong performance in the WSL and Arsenal's frustrating result at home.

RECOMMENDED LOOKING: David Squires has drawn a cartoon about a weekend with many controversial refereeing decisions in the Premier League.

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