There have been many things consistent with the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons for Leeds United. Both have been spent in the Championship, never ending the night after a match outside the top-six of the division. There has been a remit to attack and take control of matches – Leeds have had more shots than their opponents in 68 of their 81 matches, surrendering more possession to the opposition in just three games (away at Sheffield United last season and the two home games against West Brom and QPR this season; Leeds won all three games). Two other consistencies have been manager Marcelo Bielsa and Polish midfielder Mateusz Klich, who has started all 81 Championship games under the Argentine, stretching back to last season’s opening day match against Stoke City, playing 500 minutes more than any other Leeds player since then.
How rare is starting every league match across two consecutive seasons? Excluding the play-offs, in the Championship since August 2018 only two other players have started all 79 league games – West Brom goalkeeper Sam Johnstone and Millwall centre-half Jake Cooper. Across the entire Football League, only six other players can match Klich’s tally of starts, with only one of those six players – Crewe Alexandra midfielder Ryan Wintle – playing further forward than goalkeeper and defence. In the Championship, the midfielder nearest to Klich’s number of starts is Stoke City’s Joe Allen, who has started 76 games.
It is not simply Klich’s consistent appearance in the Leeds United starting XI that is impressive – after all, if you’re starting 81 consecutive Championship matches in midfield for a team managed by Marcelo Bielsa, there must be more to your game than simply fitness (although Klich recently said that he weighs himself every day when on international duty to ensure he returns to Leeds at the correct weight). Since the start of last season, he is one of only 12 players to have registered both 10 goals and 10 assists in the Championship (13 goals, 11 assists). He has also created 125 chances in open play, a figure beaten only by his colleague Pablo Hernández (143), while only Hernández has completed more passes ending in the final third than Klich (1,275), with Klich being one of three players – along with Romaine Sawyers and former Leeds loanee Matt Grimes – to complete more than 2,000 passes in the opposition half.
During Klich’s first season at Leeds in 2017/18, he played a grand total of 131 minutes in the Championship (fewer than Chris Wood, who made his final appearance in the third league match of the season). In his only start that season, away at Cardiff City, he slipped on the ball which led to an attack from which Cardiff scored. Klich was substituted in the second half and appeared in the squad for just five more league games, appearing only once for a 21-minute cameo in a 1-0 defeat at Birmingham City in the final match of 2017. Klich was sent on loan by manager Thomas Christiansen to FC Utrecht in the Dutch Eredivisie, helping them to a fifth-place finish. In a 2-2 away draw at Heracles Almelo in April, Klich created 11 chances in the match – since 2010-11 (when Opta began collecting the data for the Eredivisie), only Christian Eriksen in November 2012 for Ajax against Roda JC has created that many in a Dutch top-flight match (14). To put his achievement into more context, since 2010-11 only four players have created more chances in a match in one of Europe’s top-flight leagues in England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain.
After returning to Leeds in the summer of 2018, Klich said he had unfinished business with the club and that has translated to missing just two matches since then – the 2-1 away defeat at QPR in the FA Cup in January 2019 and the 2-2 draw with Stoke City in this season’s League Cup – and featuring in every league match, including two play-off matches. But how many other players in Leeds United’s history have played in every single league match a manager has managed for the club? Well, among managers to have taken charge of at least 20, only seven players – with Klich’s 81 under Bielsa the most of those seven. His recent appearance in the 2-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest took him one clear of the special relationship between goalkeeper John Lukic and Allan Clarke, with Lukic playing in all 78 of Clarke’s league games in charge, which came during an incredible run in which Lukic featured in 146 consecutive league games – the Leeds United club record – before his departure to Arsenal in 1983. Brian McDermott’s captain Ross McCormack is the third on the list, playing in all 51 of his games, repaying his manager with 29 goals. Many fans may wish to forget Steve Evans’ reign in 2015-16, but he did at least give Lewis Cook the opportunity to demonstrate his considerable talent, featuring in all 35 of his matches.
Assuming Leeds United do, finally, win promotion back to the Premier League at the end of this season without the need of the play-offs – and Klich starts each of the final 13 games, which seems highly likely barring injury – he will have started 94 consecutive league matches for Leeds. Since relegation from the Premier League in 2003/04, no player has had a run longer than Klich, with goalkeeper Paddy Kenny starting 76 in a row between August 2012 and February 2014 before losing his place (and never regaining it, thanks to Massimo Cellino’s insistence that players born on the 17th of the month bring bad luck). Klich’s current run of 81 is the longest by a Leeds player since Gary Kelly started 99 in a row between August 1993 and December 1995, and the longest by a midfielder since Gordon Strachan started 81 in a row between his debut in March 1989 and February 1991 (there was a second-tier promotion in the middle of that run).
Klich still has some way to go to break the all-time record set by John Lukic between 1979 and 1983 of 146 consecutive league starts (incidentally, once Lukic returned to Leeds in 1990, he then picked up where he left off and started the next 94 league games and featured in 209 of Leeds’ 244 league games between the 1990/91 and 1995/96 seasons). The outfield record is held by the club’s first ever captain Jim Baker, who started each of the club’s first 145 league matches between August 1920 and December 1923. Since Baker, only five other outfield players have achieved a run of 100 or more consecutive league appearances, most recently Norman Hunter who, after making his debut in September 1962, kept his place for 113 consecutive league matches until April 1965 when he missed the 3-1 win over Stoke City, then returned to play in the next 47. Jimmy Dunn – third on the list of outfield players with the most consecutive league starts – started 134 in a row between 1954 and 1957 and from his debut in November 1947 to his final appearance in April 1959 played in 86% of Leeds United’s league matches (422 of 490). Dunn’s tally of 422 league starts is the joint-10th most in the club’s history and beaten by only one player who never featured under Don Revie – Ernie Hart, who started 446 between 1921 and 1936. The top-10 outfield players for consecutive league starts are (Klich’s current run is joint-16th):
Marcelo Bielsa is notably unwavering in his loyalty to a fixed starting XI unless injuries or suspensions dictate otherwise – he has named an unchanged starting XI in 28 of his 87 games in charge, which is five more than the previous seven managers to take charge of the club since 2014/15 did in 203 games combined. Five of the XI who started against Bristol City on February 15th have started every game this season, with four of those having runs that extend into the previous season and without this season’s suspensions, Kalvin Phillips’ run would have extended to last April. Should Jack Harrison keep his place in the starting XI against Reading, it would be the first time since December 1994 that two outfield players have concurrently started 60 or more league matches alongside one another, when Gary Kelly and Gary McAllister did so.
From cast-off under Thomas Christiansen two years ago to an integral part of Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United machine, Mateusz Klich is writing himself into both the past and recent history of the football club. With a contract that runs until the end of the 2023/24 season and more than 150 league games to be played before then, Klich has plenty of time to chase down the six previous men who made 100 consecutive league starts for Leeds United – and it would be foolish to rule him out breaking the record as long as Marcelo Bielsa remains the head coach of the club.