Good Morning. It's Friday 18th September, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road...
Bookies slash odds on Leeds after terrific start
Four games into 2026/27, Daniel Farke’s side sit third in the Premier League. Unbeaten, they have eight points from a 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest, home and away draws with Brentford and Brighton, and Monday’s 4-1 statement victory over Newcastle at Elland Road. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has led the scoring, the 3-5-2 shape Farke committed to last winter looks settled, and the market has reacted fast. Last season Leeds finished 14th on 47 points after promotion. Pre-season prices treated them as a mid-to-lower-table side: title outsiders, modest chances of a top-four or even top-half finish, and a realistic relegation price. Those numbers have moved sharply after the opening month.How the board looks nowOn the prices in the screenshot, Leeds are:- 250/1 to win the Premier League outright
- 10/1 for a top-four finish
- 5/1 to finish in the top five
- 4/6 to finish in the top half
- 11/10 to finish in the bottom half
- 14/1 to be relegated
- 1/33 not to be relegated
- 100/1 to finish bottom
- 1/20 not to finish in the top four
- 7/1 on a +31 season handicap to “win” that market
- 40/1 to win the FA Cup
That is a different conversation from July. Title odds that were around 500/1 have halved. Top four, once 33/1 in some lists, is now only just in double digits. Top five has tightened from the mid-teens into 5/1. Top half has gone from a 9/4-style price to odds-on. Relegation has drifted from around 11/2 to 14/1, while “not to go down” is now a near-certainty price at 1/33. The handicap line is the bookmakers’ way of saying they still do not see Leeds as genuine title contenders: giving them a 31-point start to “win” the season at 7/1 is a mid-table projection dressed as a novelty bet.
Finishing bottom at 100/1 and “not top four” at 1/20 tell the same story. The market likes the start. It does not yet believe the ceiling is the Champions League places, let alone the trophy. Context matters; Arsenal and Manchester City are both on 12 points from four wins. Leeds and Hull are next on eight. That is a small sample, and the fixture list will get harder, Crystal Palace at home this weekend, then Arsenal away after the international break. A 6-3 Carabao Cup exit at Chelsea also showed the gap that still exists against the very best on a bad night, but the form is not a four-game mirage. Since Farke switched to a back three last December, Leeds have lost only a handful of league games.
Summer recruitment: James Trafford in goal, Tarik Muharemović and Nico Elvedi in defence, Harry Wilson and others in attack were designed to make them harder to play against, and more clinical. Calvert-Lewin’s hat-trick contribution (two goals and an assist) in the Newcastle win is exactly what that investment was for. For punters, the interesting prices are no longer survival. Those markets are almost settled in Leeds’ favour after four games. The live questions are whether 10/1 top four or 5/1 top five still have value if Farke’s side keep taking points from the middle of the table, and whether 4/6 top half is now too short given how the season has opened.
Swiss Media Launch Okafor Smear Campaign
Noah Okafor walked away from the Switzerland national side last week saying trust with Murat Yakin (the national coach) was gone. Within days Swiss media had hit back: not concerning his World Cup minutes, but a May birthday party in Zurich that turned sour and a restaurateur who says his staff were intimidated. On 10 September the 26-year-old Leeds forward posted that he was standing down from the national team “until further notice.” At the World Cup he played just 19 minutes, coming on against Algeria. He insisted the decision was not about playing time, citing trust had been broken and commitments were not kept. Swiss media outlet Blick responded the same day. According to the paper, Yakin had already decided Okafor would not be called up again after an incident during the World Cup involving his entourage with online attacks on Yakin and the Swiss FA.Blick also said it put that version to Okafor’s camp the day before the Instagram letter though the player vehemently denies this. The Swiss FA said it respected his decision and wished him well at club level. Five days later, Blick launched a second story. Zurich restaurateur Michel Péclard told Nau.ch about an incident at Fischer’s Fritz on Whit Monday, when Okafor turned 26. Péclard’s version is specific. Okafor’s sister wanted to decorate a reserved corner in the afternoon, balloons, the usual surprise-party kit. Staff refused. The table was only booked from 17:00 and the restaurant was full. There was a row. The meal itself, he says, then passed off. After 22:30, with the room thinning out, five “well-built” men from the group stood in front of the manager and asked what he had thought he was doing that afternoon.
Péclard says his crew felt intimidated, and that he has not seen anything like it in 25 years in the trade. He adds that the sister later asked for a discount and that he blocked it by phone. He also explains the delay. He did not want a scene during the World Cup. He spoke after Okafor left the Nati. Nau.ch reported that the Swiss FA already knew the story. That is still an assertion, not a published federation file. Blick, 20 Minuten, Watson and others ran the story hard. Okafor’s camp tell a different story. Management told Blick the party was a surprise. Okafor did not organise it. He did not know about the afternoon argument or the late confrontation. After the night, they say, the restaurant manager contacted Okafor’s sister to apologise for the inconvenience, that last point matters.
If it is true, Péclard’s “we were intimidated” story and the manager’s later apology cannot both be the whole truth, nobody have produced police papers, CCTV or named the five men. The comment from football editor Tobias Wedermann was blunt. In Okafor’s world, he wrote, it is always someone else’s fault. It is not evidence that Okafor threatened a restaurant manager. The May story, as printed, is about people around him. Timing is the other problem; a restaurant grievance from the end of May became national news in mid-September, immediately after Okafor attacked the national coach. Péclard says he waited until after the World Cup; whilst this may be true, something just doesn't sit right. It feels more like a character assassination.
