Why brilliant, physical Leeds and peerless Calvert-Lewin might be the last team Arsenal want to face
We’re in our low-possession era in the Premier League; you don’t need the ball for most of the game to win anymore.
As Opta have pointed out, this season is the first time since 2005/06 that more teams are winning matches with 45 per cent possession or less, than those with over 55 per cent possession.
Daniel Farke’s Leeds United are a perfect embodiment of this new tactical trend. They’re a typical Premier League team in 2026: much harder than you think it’ll ever be to play them.
Do we need the ball? No, we can bully teams with our physicality and energy in midfield.
What about up front? Well, we’ll push the full-backs on in a 3-4-3, and the big lad up top has remembered how to be a terrific target man again.
As we slowly start getting used to having the Premier League back in our lives, it’s high time we take a detailed look at the team Arsenal fans seem understandably nervous about playing in the lunchtime kick-off on Saturday:
Overlapping full-backs Leeds United’s 3-4-3 is a huge problem for teams in attack because of the manner in which the full-backs enthusiastically push on to support the forwards.
You’ll often see both full-backs pushed up when Leeds attack to create a headache for opposing defenders. In the situation above, Nico Elvedi from centre-back has pushed up to provide the pass for Jayden Bogle, because the Englishman is an eager forward with deceptive trickery; he often creates space for the winger in front of him.
The ‘wingers’ tend to be a Leeds United forward who isn’t Dominic Calvert-Lewin dropping wide so that the England international can remain in the box. One of Leeds’ three midfielders can also fulfil the role.
Gabriel Gudmundsson and Bogle often make runs in behind in between the gaps of the centre-backs and full-backs, meaning the wide full-back has to engage the winger.
For the opener against Newcastle United, where Leeds thrashed them 4-1, it was a typical Leeds move that allowed them to go ahead. Two wide full-backs pushed up, a midfielder (Ao Tanaka) dropped and another midfielder (Anton Stach) supported Calvert-Lewin in the box.
As it’s the full-backs and midfielders that push up to create the numbers, it’s awkward to deal with as they aren’t exactly typical attackers you’d expect to see up there.
Set pieces and throw-ins As I flicked through and watched every single Leeds United opportunity created on Wyscout, it quickly dawned that an astonishing number of them were set pieces and throw-ins. They take them very seriously.
This is one way in which they can match Arsenal where other teams can’t: with their physicality.
It’s no wonder, then, that 40% of Leeds’ expected goal total is from dead-ball situations.
In these situations, the centre-backs Elvedi and Tarik Muharemovic are pushed up to create chaos in one zone of the pitch. It attracts a lot of players into that one zone to commit and compete in the air, often to lose the aerial duel to the giant Leeds centre-backs.
If you look at both of the images above, it creates a melee in a tightly compact zone and all of a sudden, four or five opposition defenders are scrambling to get the ball away but find it difficult to do so as they’re like sardines in a can.
This isn’t to say that a Leeds player can get a clean head on the ball, but it often leads to a knockdown for another player to shoot. In the first image above, Tanaka hit the crossbar after the ball fell to him.
If you notice, there is distance and space created for the player shooting because of the chaos caused by Leeds’ defenders.
A quick Calvert-Lewin tribute It really needs to be emphasised how crucial Calvert-Lewin is to this team and how refreshing it is to see him in this rich vein of form after the way things ended with constant injury problems during his time at Everton.
Farke’s hipster full-backs and midfield can only buccaneer forward because they know there is one solid centre-forward threat that will always occupy the centre-backs. Everything they do facilitates him getting on the end of a cross.
He can also drop off slightly, take a centre-back with him and wait for others to join the attack in the old-fashioned striker way we just don’t see anymore. No-one else at Leeds can do it at anywhere near the same level.
He’s already scored three this season after bagging 14 in 2025/26; the only worry for Farke is keeping him fit.
Should Arsenal be scared? Scared is probably the wrong word. Arsenal are far and away the best team in the league, but we all saw how Brighton overwhelmed them, and last season at a crucial juncture they slipped when they looked in control.
Leeds United, with Calvert-Lewin, their surprisingly energetic full-backs and awkward physicality, are not the team they want to be playing after that pre-international break battering.
