The display against Villa, though, showed Leeds are far from a lost cause and clearly more capable of competing in the Premier League than other newly promoted sides in recent seasons.
They were positive against the visitors in the first half, and for spells in the second. Twice they were denied another goal by superb Emi Martinez saves, while Dominic Calvert-Lewin had an effort disallowed for handball.
Villa’s equaliser followed a superb flowing move, while the defensive mistakes for the winner were individual errors rather than systemic.
“Leeds played well and showed great energy, in the first half particularly, but they needed that second goal and they were up against a tactical genius in Unai Emery,” said Match of the Day pundit and former Manchester City keeper Joe Hart.
“It was a proper ding-dong Premier League match settled by a brilliant free-kick from Morgan Rogers. Leeds could easily have got a result, but they were undone by a bit of magic.”
Former England midfielder Danny Murphy believes it is clear the Leeds players are still behind Farke – even if the fans are split.
“Farke is under pressure because of Leeds’ run of bad results, but that was a bunch of players, a team, playing for their manager, and they were unlucky to lose the game. They didn’t deserve to lose it,” he told BBC Sport.
“There was a great tactical plan in the first half to condense the space and stop Villa playing through the lines to get the ball to John McGinn and Emi Buendia coming in off those wide areas, and they won the ball back time and time again.
“The Villa equaliser early in the second half took the wind out of their sails, but I thought Leeds recovered really well and even when they went 2-1 down they threw the kitchen sink at Villa. If it wasn’t for Martinez, they would have got something out of the game.
“That performance did not warrant that reaction from the Leeds fans, it was probably an accumulation of weeks of poor performances. But if they were turning up to see a reaction, and to see if the team was willing to fight and give everything for the manager and the fans, they did.
“If they play like that every week, I think they will be OK.”
And across the previous 10 seasons, 37 clubs parted ways with a manager while in the bottom three. Only 13 stayed up – a 35% success rate.
So Farke will aim to get Leeds playing like that every week – with the players he, and no-one else, picks.
