The best image of Leeds United’s pre-season did not come from a striker. It came from a centre-half. Joe Rodon — a defender whose reputation is built on heading, blocking and staying exactly where he is meant to be — went haring down the right flank at Elland Road, ran onto a through ball from Jayden Bogle and clipped a cross onto the boot of Dominic Calvert-Lewin for the opening goal in a 2-0 win over RB Leipzig.
It was not a one-off. The Wales international repeated the trick against FC Augsburg on Saturday as Daniel Farke’s side signed off with a comfortable 4-0 win, and with the Whites four days from opening their Premier League campaign at Nottingham Forest, the manager has now explained the thinking behind it. His answer tells supporters rather a lot about how Leeds intend to set up this season.
Why Joe Rodon keeps turning up on the right wing
Rodon has been operating as the right-sided centre-back in a back three, and in that role he has been taking up positions that would not look out of place on a winger’s heat map. Farke, speaking to the media after the Augsburg game, could not resist the obvious gag.
“At times he looked a bit like Joe Salah, I would say!” the German joked, as reported by the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Behind the punchline sat a serious point. Farke described the flexible positioning as important for a hybrid team, adding: “We need also a player who can be flexible in their positioning.”
That is the tell. Rodon is not freelancing. He is being asked to give a back three the width and forward momentum that a back four normally takes from a full-back — which matters against opponents who sit deep and dare Leeds to find a way through.
The formation question underneath it
Farke has been deliberately non-committal about a fixed shape, and the Augsburg game showed why. Leeds began with a three-man centre-back axis of Rodon, Jaka Bijol and Tarik Muharemović flanked by two wing-backs, then switched to a back four midway through the second half when Bijol was replaced by Noah Okafor in the 67th minute. Rodon simply tucked inside to partner Muharemović and carried on.
There is history behind the three-man defence. As The Guardian notes in its season preview, Leeds improved radically last season after switching to a broadly 3-5-2 system: from the start of December, their form would have placed them seventh in a table covering only the second half of the campaign.
Depth in that area is being topped up, too, with the Whites closing in on a deal for Switzerland defender Nico Elvedi. The more centre-backs Farke has who can do two jobs, the less he has to tell anyone in advance which shape he is playing.
What it means at the City Ground
Leeds travel to Nottingham Forest on Saturday 22 August before hosting Brentford at Elland Road on Sunday 30 August, and season openers are rarely settled by the pretty stuff. A centre-half who can become an extra attacker on the overlap is an awkward problem for a defence that has spent the week planning for two wingers and a No 9.
The risk is equally obvious: every yard Rodon spends near the opposition corner flag is a yard he is not covering behind. That is the trade Farke appears willing to make, and it is why the “Joe Salah” line is worth more than a laugh. Leeds do not want to be readable — and on this evidence, they will not be.
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