Leeds United v Crystal Palace FC - Premier League 2026/27
LEEDS, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 20: Daniel Farke Manager of Leeds United on the side line during the Premier League 2026/27 match between Leeds United and Crystal Palace FC at Elland Road on September 20, 2026 in Leeds, England. (Photo by Nigel French/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
Nine points from our opening five Premier League games see Leeds United sit in 5th as we head into the international break.
The lacklustre 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace over the weekend may have left a sour taste in some supporters’ mouths before our next league game against Arsenal on 10 October.
However, there’s no getting away from the fact that our start to the season has been incredible as a whole.
However, talkSPORT has recently made an extremely hypocritical claim about the start Daniel Farke’s men have made to the new campaign.
TalkSPORT grades Leeds United’s start to the season a B
TalkSPORT recently published an opinion article where they graded every Premier League team’s start to the season.
To say the article is inconsistent would be an overstatement. Despite being on the same number of points as Brentford, they received an A grade. We only received a B, on the other hand.
After five games, we’re also level on points with Liverpool, whose start to the season was also graded a B.
So this implies that in our second season in the Premier League, Leeds have similar expectations placed upon them as Liverpool. This is despite Liverpool spending over £100million on numerous individual players like Bradley Barcola, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak. It doesn’t make any sense.
Whilst Brentford are a much smaller club than us, they are far more established in the Premier League currently. To see them given an A whilst we sit on a B is puzzling, to say the least.
When justifying their decision on United’s grade at the start of the season, the article said:
“Months after being tipped for the sack at Leeds, Daniel Farke has got his side sitting pretty in fifth and unbeaten, with less than £100m spent in the summer.
“James Trafford and Tarik Muharemovic have been two top signings at the back. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been rewarded for his three league goals with another England call-up.
“The 4-1 home victory over Newcastle United demonstrated just how good they can be going forward, whilst their tally of three goals conceded is a testament to their resilience in defence.”
TalkSPORT’s justification for Leeds’ B grade is bizarre
When reading talkSPORT’s assessment of the start of our season, it only muddies the waters even further.
They rave about our start to the season and the job Farke has done, and rightly so.
So what more could we have physically done to get a higher grade? In the article, talkSPORT doesn’t have a bad word to say about us.
Personally, I’d give our start to the season an A-. Up until last weekend, I’d have argued we were an A, but that performance against Palace just knocks us down a tiny bit, even though it was a good point in the end.
We’re still unbeaten, and we’ve faced two teams in Brighton and Palace who are in Europe this season. Brentford are also likely to be in and around those European spots come the end of the current campaign too, so I’d argue our start to the season has been quite tough.
It will be hard to keep this unbeaten run going when we return from the international break, with our first two games being against Arsenal and Manchester United.
But with Man U starting the season poorly, we could be playing them at Elland Road at the perfect time.