Leeds United head to Brentford this weekend in a season finale that will decide their Premier League fate. The Whites will begin the day in the bottom three, behind Burnley on goal difference and needing to better the Clarets' Sunday result to survive.
That means Leeds head to west London needing a result against a side that an unlikely rivalry has been built in recent seasons. Leeds have not won away at Brentford since the 1950s, though this will be their first visit to the new stadium, which they will be hoping hands them a change in fortune.
But with the two clubs having been in the Championship alongside each other for several seasons up until Leeds’ promotion in 2020, it’s fair to say they haven’t seen eye to eye with one another in that time. The first game which ignited the flame came back in February 2018, when neither side had any real aspirations of achieving promotion.
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Leeds defeated the Bees 1-0 at Elland Road, which led to then manager Dean Smith complaining that the grass had been cut too long. And that led us nicely into the following meeting around eight months later when tensions really started to rise.
Striker Ollie Watkins won a penalty for the Bees in which replays showed there was minimal, if any contact at all. The game ended 1-1 thanks to a late equaliser Pontus Jansson, but that did not stop the former Whites and current Brentford defender from swearing and criticising the referee in his post-match interview, which led to him receiving a ban.
Later that season, Brentford were then effectively the side that ended Leeds’ automatic promotion hopes with a 2-0 win at Griffin Park, in a game where Patrick Bamford was denied a stonewall penalty at 0-0. That was also the first time Thomas Frank had taken charge of a match with Leeds following his appointment earlier in the season.
And it is Frank who has ultimately been the main man in continuing the feud between the two clubs, particularly given his comments prior to the meeting in February 2020. With both sides were vying for automatic promotion, Leeds had hit a wall in their season and entered the game at Griffin Park in terrible form.
But Frank’s post-match press conference helped light a fuse in the bellies of Leeds players – which is ultimately seen as the night where the Whites swung the momentum back in their favour with a gutsy 1-1 draw after Kiko Casilla’s calamitous early error.
He said: “Of the two teams, we definitely have more momentum than Leeds right now. Everyone knows how much I respect Marcelo Bielsa, his staff and what he has done to build up Leeds as a club and as a team and I think they are the best team in the division.
“They couldn't pick a worse place to play on Tuesday night, they couldn't. I am 100 per cent sure of that. I’m 100 per cent sure they fear us going into this game.
“That’s not to say we’re going to win it because momentum is one thing, history is one thing, but then you go into the game and it has its own life. We don’t know exactly what to expect, yet I promise you one thing, we will absolutely be at it and ready to attack.”
Leeds went on to earn promotion that season, with Brentford falling just short twice – missing out on a top-two place on the final day, before losing in extra time of the play-offs to Fulham. In Leeds’ title celebrations, a video of Liam Cooper and Stuart Dallas singing ‘mind the gap Thomas Frank’ came to light on social media.
Just under two years later, that same video is back under scrutiny after Bees striker Ivan Toney retweeted it on Twitter. It’s fair to say they will not be up for doing Leeds any favours on Sunday.
