Daniel Farke's solution to Leeds United goal drought is small-sided games, not mind games — Yorkshire Post 19/9/25
By Stuart Rayner
Leeds United have been working this week to try to build the
confidence of their misfiring forwards with small-sided training matches rather
than mind games.
The Whites have only scored once in their opening four
Premier League matches, and that was a Lukas Nmecha penalty on the first night.
Clearly that will have to improve to achieve their objective of staying in the
top division.
After drawing a blank in defeat at Fulham, manager Daniel
Farke pointedly said: "Willy Gnonto, Daniel James, Jack Harrison, Brenden
Aaronson, they were all with us when we were (last) relegated from the Premier
League (James was on loan at Fulham) and they were all called hopeless and not
good enough for the Premier League. This is reality.
"We shouldn't expect miracles. I can't expect something
from a player he's not capable of delivering."
Farke needs them confident in front of goal, not least with
a trip to a Wolverhampton Wanderers side yet to claim a point this season on
Saturday. It is something he has been working on this week, but he insists he
was not trying to get into their heads with his comments.
"It's not like if you're struggling a bit in terms of
scoring goals, you address it, train it for one or two days and all my
offensive players turn into prime Ronaldo!" he joked.
"It's step by step to get the confidence back, it's
bringing them more into positions in front of the goals. We've had many
small-sided games this week when they are naturally many goalscoring
opportunities and if you then score goals you get some confidence and the
instinct comes back but the main thing is to do this in the games.
"I've been happy with our performances in training but
right now it's about converting this into games. The week's been good so far.
"We have one more important training session to work on
shooting and our processes and hopefully whoever will start on Saturday will
convert this into a good performance and end products."
He was unrepentant about his post-match comments, saying he
warned his players about them.
"It was something I spoke to the lads about," he
said. "I don't believe too much in psychological games. I like to be open,
honest and say it how I see it.
"It must be possible sometimes to address that we have
good players, players we trust and back, who have the chance to develop but
there are still challenges in their game that we need to improve.
"It must be possible to say I like this guy, he's
working really hard, his work against the ball is on a top level but he still
has to improve his offensive output. This is what I've done.
"They all know how much I trust them. If I didn't trust
them and believe in them, they wouldn't be in our squad. I would have told
them, you're not for me at Premier League level (as he did with Patrick
Bamford). I back them to improve in comparison to three seasons ago.
"It must be possible to back your players but also ask
for improvement in some areas and not to interpret too much as psychological
games."
