Daniel Farke says early season form shows Leeds ‘belong’ in the Premier League — Independent 20/9/25
The West Yorkshire team took their tally to seven points from five games with victory at struggling Wolves.
Sunny Badwal
Leeds boss Daniel Farke says his side have showed they
“belong” in the Premier League following their 3-1 victory over Wolves at
Molineux.
Things started well for Wolves boss Vitor Pereira, who
signed a new contract in midweek, when Ladislav Krejci put the hosts ahead
after eight minutes.
However, Leeds responded well and soon scored their first
open-play goal of the season when Dominic Calvert-Lewin opened his account for
the club since joining from Everton to bring the game level.
The visitors were not finished there either, a stunning
free-kick from Anton Stach put Leeds in front before Noah Okafor’s finish on
the stroke of half-time rounded off the scoring as Leeds won on the road for
the first time this season.
It was the West Yorkshire team’s second win of the campaign
but Farke wants his side to also stay grounded.
The German said: “We stay humble. We know two wins after
five games is really good, seven points for a newly promoted side is really
good.
“But we also know seven points won’t be enough to earn the
right to stay in this league, so it’s a long road and we have to add a few more
wins and many more points.
“It’s important to enjoy these moments and we know wins are
important for the whole confidence and atmosphere.
“The first five games have shown we belong in this league,
we can play at this level and we can win these games.”
Leeds had failed to score in each of their last three games
– their only goal before Saturday being from the penalty spot against Everton
in August.
Farke never had any doubt his team would start to put the
ball in the back of the net though.
He added: “It was never in doubt we would score. In the
first games we have created chances and had many shots, we have worked so hard
during the week to force a goal.
“We were dominant and created many chances with excellent
goals and we had a clinical edge. We had a dominant start and (were) confident,
you can see we wanted to dominate it.
“It was crucial we didn’t dwell and lose confidence (from
the Wolves opener), and after such a heartbreaking final in the last game (last
week’s late defeat at Fulham).
“We just kept believing in what we wanted to do. We scored
three excellent goals.”
Wolves are yet to pick up a point after five successive
defeats and although Pereira admitted his team had another tough afternoon he
thinks one good result will change their fortunes.
He explained: “We know we need to improve. The first half
was not in our level and second half we decided to take more risks and play
with two strikers and it was different.
“It is a difficult time for us but the way to get better is
to keep working. Mentally, we need a result to give us the confidence, to not
commit easy mistakes and give us the confidence in the box. Sometimes it just
needs a result to make it change.
