Daniel Farke proud of Leeds United's spirited showing at Tottenham despite safety already assured
Daniel Farke was rightly proud of his Leeds United players as they dug in and showed terrific spirit to battle for a draw at relegation threatened Tottenham.
Even with their Premier League place already safe for another season the Whites played as if they were as desperate for a result as the home side and managed to collect another hard earned point, overcoming poor refereeing again to get a 1-1 result.
But for an injury-time save and the crossbar denying Sean Longstaff they would have been celebrating all three points so strong was the comeback after Spurs had taken the lead early in the second half.
“I'm very proud because sometimes during the long season there are games that you don't win just with your football quality – sometimes you have to show steel, especially in a difficult away game at Tottenham,” said manager Farke.
“Tottenham were highly motivated with the back to back wins, the stadium was on it. For us the big pressure was off us with the results but it was a difficult week, we had to play without many key players and had to play some players out of position.
“Also during the game some setbacks, additionally Pascal Struijk out, but we showed great resilience against all the adversity and we were a bit unlucky not to win it in the end.
"It was another setback early in the second half to concede and sometimes you can crumble. Not us, we showed that we didn't want to lose this game, we stepped up and fully deserved to equalise.
“Then we didn't stop we wanted to go for it and in the end the chances with Sean nearly won this game. It says a lot about the team."
Farke continued: “We could have been a bit braver in the first half and played too many long balls.
“The second half was way better in many aspects.
“I like that we did not want to sit back, we pressed them high and my players were greedy to score. In our DNA it will always be that we want to win games.”
On the excessive added time that saw more than 15 minutes extra played at the end Farke added: “It feels that when we are chasing the game the maximum given is just four or five minutes, but when we are in the lead we have record injury-time.
“It's not my topic to discuss it, but I was quite happy, I know we have a top fitness level anyhow and we also wanted to chase this game. Of course a draw is a good result, but in the end it felt that we could win in so I wasn't too annoyed.”
Leeds are now unbeaten in their last seven league games, taking 13 points from them to get to safety.
Their latest match was always going about whether they were motivated enough to keep the run going, but they showed in the first half that they were still committed even if they were not at their fluent best.
A couple of good positions early on were not capitalised on while Tottenham's first chance saw Richarlison race through on goal only for Joe Rodon to outpace him and get back to back a crucial clean tackle.
Rodon went closest to a goal in the opening half with a superb downward header from Brenden Aaronson's cross that was equally impressively saved low down in the nick of time by keeper Antonin Kinsky who clawed the ball away as part of it crossed the line.
But Spurs were fortunate to avoid giving away a penalty when Dominic Calvert-Lewin was brought down close to goal after being slipped through by Aaronson. Referee Jarred Gillet did not point to the spot, but before Leeds players could get angry an offside flag belatedly went up and VAR confirmed that the White striker had been a couple of inches offside in the build-up.
It was not Gillet's first controversial moment as he somehow missed a blatant foul on Anton Stach just outside the box earlier in the half and failed to produce cards for some heavy challenges on Leeds players.
Mathys Tel was the source of most of the hosts' best attacks in the first half as he took advantage of being up against emergency right wing-back Dan James, playing instead of injury victim Jayden Bogle.
His cross led to a big chance for Joao Palhinha, but the midfielder hammered his shot over.
Moments later Rodrigo Bentancur steered a header wide and it was still goalless at half-time.
Tottenham started the second half like they ended the first and went ahead within five minutes as Jaka Bijol's header out from the hosts' seventh corner went straight to Tel just outside the box and he had time to line up a shot that bent perfectly into the top corner of the net.
It was Leeds' turn to be lucky on the hour when Richarlison sent a shot over when well placed to meet a cross from Kolo Muani.
But from this point United got stronger and Spurs were given a warning when Calvert-Lewin and James linked up well only for the latter to fire over.
The next big attack saw the outstanding Ethan Ampadu go to win a header in the box as Tel aimed to clear with an overhead kick.
The Spurs player missed the ball and made contact with the Leeds skipper's head – as a bump on his forehead showed and surely the referee had to point to the spot?
Once again the answer was no as he somehow did not think it was a foul and did not stop the game for a head injury either, allowing Tottenham to go on the attack. But after a VAR check Gillett was sent to the screen to correct his clear and obvious error and from the resulting penalty Calvert-Lewin confidently netted his 14th goal of the season.
With home nerves now clearly jangling in their must not lose game Leeds went for another goal and almost got it when substitute Lukas Nmecha got on the end of Calvert-Lewin’s flick only to see his shot from close range blocked.
Unbelievably the board went up for 13 minutes of added time as the drama was to continue a while longer yet – quite where all this time came from was baffling as there was little time wasting going on as in many other games and led to more questioning of Gillett's performance.
Yes there was the VAR delay, a couple of small injury delays, two goals and four substitutions to add time on for, but 13 minutes was way over the top.
It could have been United who won it, however, as Longstaff was cleverly played in by James Justin and hammered a shot goalwards. Kinsky did well to get a hand on it and got lucky when it then came back off the woodwork and somehow evaded the following up Willy Gnonto.
Within a minute another chance arrived as Stach's cross was headed on by Bijol and Longstaff arrived at the far post only to be unable to score on the half-volley from five yards out.
There was still time for more drama as in the 13th minute of added time Spurs had a huge shout for a penalty as their sub James Maddison went down in the area under a challenge by Nmecha.
To be fair to the referee he deserved big credit this time as he awarded a corner not a spot kick and was proved right as replays showed that the Leeds player had got a touch on the ball.
Gillett still managed to play an additional two minutes over the 13 he had initially signalled, but finally blew for time to end a game that had felt like an epic again even with so little on it for United.
Tottenham Hotspur 1
(Tel 50)
(Calvert-Lewin 74, pen)
Premier League
Monday, May 11, 2026
Spurs: Kinsky; Porro, Danso, van de Ven, Udogie (Spence 85); Palhinha, Bentancur (Bergvall 81’), Kolo Muani, Gallagher,Tel (Maddison 85); Richarlison.
Leeds: Darlow; Rodon, Bijol, Struijk (Bornauw 56); James (Gnonto 63), Ampadu, Tanaka (Longstaff 90+3), Justin; Stach, Aaronson (Nmecha 63’); Calvert-Lewin.
Referee: Jarred Gillett