A 3-1 loss away to Cardiff City and 2-2 draw at home to Charlton mean Neil Redfearn is still looking for his first win as permanent Leeds United boss, but results alone disguise the progress made and the promising signs of a Whites side built around homegrown youngsters.

Redfearn has already shown absolute faith in Leeds United’s academy and is delivering on the promise to play a side built around it. Sam Byram, Lewis Cook, Chris Dawson and Alex Mowatt have all featured in the last two games while Charlie Taylor, another homegrown youngster, has been on the bench.

Other youngsters have made the cut too, Adryan getting his first Leeds United start against Charlton and Montenegro coming on from the bench.

With so many youngsters in the side, it’d be easy to forgive a few careless errors when Leeds United record a bad result but the reality is, it was the senior pros making the costly mistakes at Cardiff City and home to Charlton. Marco Silvestri suddenly looks fallible, the defensive line in front of him equally error prone.

Meanwhile, Lewis Cook’s stock continues to rise and Alex Mowatt is scoring ‘worldies’ almost at will. The green shoots are there, but it’ll take more than a few games for this side to hit its stride and blossom into a product capable of escaping this division.

You’d be right in arguing that the same applied to David Hockaday and Darko Milanic, but to do so ignores a willingness and belief in youngsters and the style of football I’d expect of a Leeds United side. I won’t dispute whether Hockaday and Milanic got enough time to fully mold a team in their image, but we saw enough of both coaches in their brief spells to get a glimpse of the setup and the kind of football they wanted to instil upon Leeds United and neither made me excited to attend games.

Both suffered from the same overly cautious approach. ‘Crabbing’ as it was described to me at the time, the act of passing a ball sideways across the defensive line, often backwards but almost never forwards, was a signature of both coaches. The possession stats looked good on paper, but what use is possession when you’re just passing the ball around in your own half, incapable of creating chances?

It’s so un-Leeds like. And while Neil Redfearn hasn’t got Leeds United firing on all cylinders just yet, they clearly had license to get forward in numbers against Charlton and things are suddenly happening in games to somewhat justify the cost of attending them.

It seems a lifetime ago at this stage, but we were once a League One side who would laugh at the idea of going to Old Trafford and parking the bus, yet Milanic had us battening down the hatches against Norwich City, a game in which we managed four shots, none of which – except the goal – I can remember.

The reason this club loves young players is because young players play without fear. Every fan knows that attacking in numbers leaves you vulnerable at the back, but sitting back and doing nothing of interest like we did against Norwich won’t win you many games, certainly not the division, and what’s more, it’s utterly tedious to watch.

I don’t care if we lose 3-1 chasing a game, I could justify the odd hammering so long as we went for it, got in the oppositions faces and attacked in numbers. But what I can’t tolerate is a Leeds United side cowering to the likes of Norwich, showing these teams too much respect and fearing them when we should be going their with a chip on our shoulder, hell-bent on taking the game to them.

So much change has left Leeds United with an identity crisis. We’ve lost our fearless resolve, that certain Northern arrogance which took us to Old Trafford fully expecting our team to get in their faces, attack, and if not win, make sure the hosts knew they’d been in a game.

That team had Leeds United at its core. Richard Naylor, Jonny Howson and Simon Grayson all knew what it was to be Leeds because they are Leeds. Neil Redfearn is Leeds too and building a team upon homegrown academy graduates is how we’ll rediscover the identity we’ve let slowly slip away from us over the past few years.

Amid a few disappointing results, never forget this is a transitional season. That transition must see us emerge for the 2015-16 as a team recognisably Leeds United; cocky stride, Northern arrogance and a relentless attacking resolve. A team who wouldn’t dream of cowering to Manchester United, never mind Norwich bleeding City.

On and on…