How many games can Leeds afford to lose and still win promotion?

Leeds United have lost three games in the Championship this season and panic starts to set in after each defeat.

That is what it means to be associated with Leeds in a promotion race. The pressure of being one of the biggest teams in the division with an expectation of top-flight football means each slip-up comes under the microscope. But last season has played its part too, as scars linger of Daniel Farke’s side falling agonisingly short of promotion despite racking up 90 points.

It was a race at the top unlike any other in recent years in the Championship. Comparatively, Leeds are performing just as well again this year. United have the same points at the 18-game mark (35), the same number of goals scored (31) and fewer goals conceded (13 this season, 18 last season). There are signs that this is a well-balanced, excellent team as opposed to last season’s great group with standout individuals. There will be bumps in the road and the 1-0 away defeat by Blackburn Rovers, which prevented Leeds from returning to the top of the league, was another one.

Away form has not been ideal this season. Defeats at Millwall and Blackburn, as well as draws at Bristol City and Sunderland have proved tricky as Farke’s side have looked to build up the type of run that put them in contention last season. Their 15-game unbeaten run from January to April allowed them to challenge for a top-two spot before — unforgivably in the eyes of some fans — slipping away.

This year the division should be less pressured. It is unlikely we will see four teams establish such a sustained race for the top two, although it remains competitive as we near the halfway mark. The defeat at Blackburn proved costly, with Farke’s side dropping down to third with just five points separating first and fourth. Sheffield United, Burnley and Sunderland, against whom Leeds have a record of one win, one draw and one defeat, are their main competition.

Panic after defeat when the stakes are so high is natural. So what does history tell us about the number of points Leeds can afford to drop?

Across the last five seasons, losing games does not necessarily prevent a team from winning the Championship. In three seasons, 2023-24 (Leicester), 2021-22 (Fulham) and 2019-20 (Leeds), the team that finished top lost more games than those that finished second. In each of those cases, drawing too often proved costly for the teams finishing in second-place (Ipswich (12), Bournemouth (13) and West Brom (17) respectively), as shown in the table below.

An interesting trend, also true of this season after 18 matches, is that for all the teams that finished in the top three of the Championship, at least 50 per cent of their defeats happened away from home. So the popular belief that making your home a fortress leads to promotion rings true in this case. The fact that United have lost away at Millwall and Blackburn this season fits that pattern. Farke’s team already have three defeats but this should not be too much of a concern given they had also lost three by the same mark last season, which proved to be an outlier compared to the previous four.

Ipswich’s six defeats (five of which came away from Portman Road) last season were the fewest defeats in the past five seasons for teams finishing second. Across that period, teams finishing second lost between six and 11 games and still managed to achieve automatic promotion — this leaves Leeds with plenty of room for difficult games yet. In the season they won the Championship under Marcelo Bielsa, Leeds lost only one fewer game than last season and drew the same number of matches, which illustrates the unusual competitiveness of 2023-24.

Should they achieve promotion this season, the step up to the Premier League will be as difficult as ever with all three of last season’s promoted sides struggling in the early part of the season. Promotion requires a step up in performances but also a shift in mentality from routinely winning to losing much more often. By comparison, teams challenging for a top-three spot in the Premier League have even less margin for error when it comes to losing games with Manchester City (2023-24 and 2021-22) and Liverpool (2019-20) only losing three times in their title-winning seasons.

Burnley (in 2022-23) are the only team in the past five Championship seasons to have incurred so few defeats. Their immediate relegation after that promotion-winning season shows the challenges even a dominant second-tier side face at the next level.

Frustrating though the Blackburn loss may be, Leeds should not need to perform at the same unprecedented level as last season to win promotion. Farke and his team will learn from the experience and will know that too many defeats are likely to be what separates the automatic places from the play-offs. But recent history shows that draws are also to be treated with caution if they have ambitions of winning the league and the step up from there is the biggest challenge of them all.

(Top photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)