Daniel Farke says Leeds survival ranks really high in his career

Daniel Farke did not treat Leeds' final-day win over Brighton as a throwaway. After Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored in the sixth minute of added time, Farke said keeping Leeds in the Premier League “ranks really, really high” in his career. Leeds won 1-0 at Elland Road, their final home game of the season, and stretched their unbeaten league run to eight matches.

How Leeds finished the season

The match itself was tight for a long time. Leeds did not have an effort on target until Calvert-Lewin’s winner, which came after he pounced on Jan Paul van Hecke’s under-hit back-pass. That sort of ending will please Farke more than any comfortable afternoon would have done, because it gave Leeds a clean-sheet win and a neat final note for a season that had already been secured.

Farke said, “We defended our goal really well.” He added that Brighton were “the more dominant side” in the second half, but Leeds “never stopped believing that there would be this one chance.”

That chance also pushed Leeds to 13th in the table. They finished on 47 points from 37 league matches, with the unbeaten run reaching eight by the end.

Why Farke placed it so highly

Farke’s bigger point was about the job itself. “To bring such a massive club out of a really desperate situation right now into a position where we are fully allowed to label ourselves a proper club, even on top-flight level, feels very, very special,” he said. He also noted that in the last 25 years only Marcelo Bielsa had taken Leeds to the Premier League before.

That is a fair reading from the Leeds manager. The club were not playing for survival on the final whistle at Elland Road, but the season still carried real weight for him because the finish was stronger than the position suggested for much of the year. Calvert-Lewin ended with 14 Premier League goals for Leeds, a useful return in a season that gave Farke a proper closing result rather than a flat one.

Brighton’s defeat does not close their European chase. Fabian Hurzeler said his side “controlled the game” and “created plenty of chances”, while also calling the loss a product of one error. Brighton are seventh, two points behind Bournemouth and one ahead of Brentford, so their final game still matters.