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Leeds beat Tottenham 1-0 at Elland Road in Matchweek 10, Noah Okafor coming off the bench to score the winner in the 79th minute. Spurs had most of the ball and very little to show for it, and Leeds were the ones creating the better chances. Jayden Bogle was also lucky to stay on the pitch after a first-half tackle on Mathys Tel that could easily have been a red. That ends Leeds' five-game winless run and lifts them to 12 points, while Tottenham's four-match unbeaten run is over and they stay on 13. Leeds fans will be delighted; Spurs fans will be wondering where the goals went.
Pre-match Talking Points
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1Leeds sit 13th on 9 points after nine games, with just the one win and six draws. That is a lot of almosts. Tottenham are 6th on 13 points, so a Spurs win keeps them in the European conversation, while a Leeds win lifts Elland Road out of the muddle in the middle. Nobody is in real danger yet, but Leeds are only a bad week from looking over their shoulder.
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2These two have history that Leeds fans would rather not dwell on: Spurs won the large majority of their Premier League meetings going into last season. Leeds will be keen to say that is ancient history, which is a fine thing to say when you are 13th. Elland Road is loud and has a habit of making visitors uncomfortable, so the old record is not the whole story.
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3Player to watch: Dominic Solanke. He scored 19 Premier League goals for Bournemouth in 2024/25, then moved to Spurs. If you want something to say, ask whether a striker who scores like that can do it when the team around him is not exactly sweeping teams aside. Spurs have scored 12 in nine, which is fine but not frightening.
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4The subplot is Leeds' draws. Six from nine is a lot of points quietly left on the table, and it says they are hard to beat but short of the killer touch. Spurs have also drawn four, so expect two sides who rarely lose and rarely win. Check the team sheets before kick-off: they were not confirmed when this was written.
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5The hook: this is a 12:30 early kick-off, the slot that fans of both clubs claim to love and complain about in equal measure. Leeds have a goal difference of zero and Spurs plus three, so there is nothing between them on paper. A draw would be the seventh for Leeds this season, which is the safe thing to predict and possibly the most boring.
Team Talking Points
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1Leeds beat Tottenham 1-0 at Elland Road on Saturday thanks to Noah Okafor. He came off the bench and scored with his first touch in the 79th minute. Few things make a manager look cleverer than a substitute scoring within two minutes of coming on.
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2The win ended a five-match winless run in the league and stopped a resurgent Spurs side in their tracks. Leeds also had much the better of the chances. Leeds fans will point out it was no smash-and-grab.
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3It wasn't without controversy. Spurs were furious Leeds weren't reduced to ten men, and VAR got plenty of airtime afterwards. Leeds fans will tell you it all evens out over a season. Spurs fans will not.
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4Daniel Farke has Leeds eighth, just two points off a European place. For a club that has spent much of the last few years bouncing between divisions, that's very welcome stability. Mention Europe casually and watch a Leeds fan try very hard not to get excited.
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5Small worry over the break: Leeds midfielder Gudmundsson picked up some hamstring tightness on Sweden duty. Sweden boss Graham Potter says it isn't serious and he should be back on the pitch within days. That's the sort of detail that makes you sound properly plugged in.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Eighth and two points off Europe, and Okafor only needed one touch to beat Spurs. Farke's got Leeds looking like a proper Premier League side again.
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Avoid saying
"Leeds are a yo-yo club" — technically defensible over the last decade, but saying it while they're eighth and eyeing Europe is the quickest way to get a lecture about Don Revie.
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1Spurs lost 1-0 at Leeds last Saturday. Noah Okafor came off the bench and scored 11 minutes from the end. It ended a decent run for Tottenham, and it ended Leeds' five-game winless streak, which made it even more annoying.
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2Manager Roberto De Zerbi lost his temper over a second-half booking for Pedro Porro and got booked himself. That earns him a one-game touchline ban, so he'll be stuck in the stands for the first game back, at home to Ipswich on Saturday 21 November.
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3De Zerbi is the permanent boss after a busy spell in the dugout. Thomas Frank was sacked and Igor Tudor had a short interim stint before De Zerbi arrived. Spurs fans have had a lot of new names to learn.
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4Fan reaction to Leeds has been grumpy. Some supporters' sites have criticised De Zerbi's tactics, and there's been chat about Porro's form and Mohammed Kudus being left isolated out on the right wing. Mention Kudus looking lonely and you'll sound like you watched the whole 90 minutes.
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5To be fair, it was only their second league defeat in eight games, so this isn't a crisis. Just don't tell that to a Spurs fan the week after losing at Elland Road.
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Top thing to say down the pub
De Zerbi's going to be watching the Ipswich game from the stands, which is probably the calmest he'll be all season.
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Avoid saying
"Typical Spurs." Fans have heard it from every rival since about 1961, and it hits harder after a late defeat at Leeds. You'll get an eye-roll and a lecture about the Europa League trophy.