Worries over recruitment, fan tokens and Premier League season are natural, not negative for Leeds United fans

Keeping the glass half empty lessens disappointment when it gets knocked over by the latest calamity to befall the club you love and, in the years between Leeds’ last Premier League stay and their current spell as a top-flight outfit, the glass was rarely upright. Pessimism was a form of protection from pain, even if it could not prevent it entirely. Things are, of course, very different now. Leeds have been on the up since Marcelo Bielsa walked through the doors at Elland Road.

Thanks chiefly to the Championship title and subsequent promotion, a top-10 place in the Premier League and some stunning football, the glass runneth over for the first time in many years.

Off the field issues have more closely resembled mishaps or misunderstandings than calamities and scandals, with majority owner Andrea Radrizzani enjoying the kind of popularity that accompanies success and good decisions, like the one to hire Bielsa.

Still, worry is never that far away. This summer the poison could be supped from a number of sources: Kalvin Phillips’ scant recovery time after a physically and emotionally overwhelming Euros, the lack of new faces in midfield, the contract bearing the name Bielsa that once again sat unsigned all summer until the eve of the season, recent injuries for Diego Llorente and Junior Firpo, pre-season results or a fan token cryptocurrency scheme that no matter how it’s dressed up doesn’t have a very Leeds feel to it.

CEO Angus Kinnear’s reassuring appearance on The Square Ball podcast after a weekend of mostly negative response to the Socios partnership was timely, even if he could not allay all the concerns that had been and continue to be expressed.

Worriers are often represented as negative people, as critics or haters, but they only worry because they care. To them Leeds United matters.

It matters that the club is run in a way that adheres to values supporters can recognise and align with. It matters that Bielsa remains in place to carry on the quite frankly miraculous job he’s done with what was a mid-table Championship team. It matters that the head coach has the right tools and the right players signed, fit and prepared to carry out his bidding.

It matters that Leeds stay in the Premier League, this season perhaps even more so than last. It would have been a sporting tragedy had they gone up and come back down before fans returned in full to Elland Road, but to suffer relegation this season right in front of the adoring public they’re set to be reunited with after a torturous time apart? To put together such an impressive record in empty stadia on their return to the big time only to fall apart when the supporters finally joined them? Unthinkable.

Worry may be expressed in negative ways and it may not help anyone, but it comes from a good place, from passion and fondness built up over years by the relationship between fan and football club, by a bond strengthened by the struggles as much as the triumphs.

And it’s not silly to get so carried away.

The sport as a whole was given a dose of reality by a pandemic that pulled matters of life and death sharply into focus and few if any footballing institutions were hit harder than Leeds United, and yet football was something to cling to in dark times.

The game, the results, the day-to-day issues all still mattered so very much to Whites supporters as they dealt with the ever-shifting landscape of life in lockdown.

If anything, it will all matter even more this season.

The first game will always mean something because of the venue and the opposition, but, in general, the games are going to take on a new meaning entirely.

Famous grounds that lay empty will be filled with the racket created by 3,000 travelling Whites. Raphinha, Robin Koch, Diego Llorente, Rodrigo and Firpo will hear Elland Road roar for the first time. This will be Leeds United, Premier League, proper.

Tension will make a return because fans bring it with them and goals like the one Stuart Dallas scored at Manchester City last season will not just look and feel good, they’ll sound good.

Worry will always be there but when the whistle blows for each of the 38 games, excitement and a whole host of other emotions will take over.

This season will be one to relish because things that were normal, like a crowd of people in one place singing a song, will be new again. Even when they feel normal again it will be something to celebrate.

And Leeds, you feel, will be okay. The midfield that looked light going into last season still does and an injury or two would really give everyone something to worry about but Bielsa turned a full-back into Player of the Year in the middle of the park so maybe it won’t be a problem.

His squad know they’re capable of a top-10 finish and that, for a second season running, would do just fine.

Predictions are folly yet it’s not difficult to see enough wins to keep Leeds in the right half of the table, with so many in the team possessing the potential to improve on their first campaign.

In Bielsa the Whites boast a head coach with a proven ability to wring from players things they didn’t even know they had, a leader who can inspire them to go again, one more time, with feeling.

Football is here again, Leeds are taking on the Premier League and it won’t be boring – you don’t have to worry about that.