Leeds United v Watford: Solving the Elland Road puzzle is key for Leeds - as Farke prepares to face good friend Valerien Ismael - Yorkshire Post 23/9/23
WORD is getting out about Leeds United.
In truth, Daniel Farke - who does not strike you as the sort
of manager who leaves anything to chance - has already been making
contingencies.
He may be German, but he has been around the block long
enough in England to know that when the overwhelming majority of teams who come
to Elland Road - certainly at Championship level - the aim will be to spoil,
drop deep, break up the game where necessary and not give the club's raucous
support any encouragement whatsoever.
Leeds have certainly provided warmth and animation on their
travels so far this season, registering fine wins at Millwall and Ipswich which
have turned a few heads across the second-tier landscape.
At home, they have not been beaten so far in 2023-24, but
have yet to win at league level. Their last three points at LS11 was back on
April 4.
Overcoming teams who will make no apologies for heading to
Leeds and dropping deep with a low block to stymie United - as Sheffield
Wednesday did recently - could well assume a fair bit of importance in the
context of their season.
On solving the puzzle, Farke acknowledged: "Once you
have a look in recent years in more or less each and every league - also abroad
- and (see) who wins titles, there is sometimes an exception.
"But normally it's always a team was also able to open
up pretty compact opponents and find ways to do this.
"This is why I love to work that much on this topic
with my lads because it's relatively easy to work to be compact and with
perfect distances between the lines and also all over the pitch to be compact,
it's more or less easy.
"But to find solutions against us to find these gaps
and the creativity and the space also to open them (opponents) up to make them
lose their compactness, this is much more complicated.
"This is also what makes the difference between the
top, top class teams and the good teams. Obviously we also want to be a
top-class team in this division and for that we work a lot on this topic."
A striker in his playing days, Farke faces a former defender
he knows well from German football in Watford manager and former Barnsley head
coach Valerien Ismael.
A meticulous operator, Ismael displayed his eye for detail
in his time at Oakwell, with his players quickly learning about his high
standards.
Farke remembers Ismael being 'horrible to play against' as a
player.
His successful Barnsley side had the same trait and to be
successful, his current one must develop that quality.
The pair know each other well from time spent together
working on their UEFA Pro licenses in Germany.
Farke added: "He's a great, great guy. I like him
really, really much.
"We spent more or less our education in Germany, it's
quite a long time together - 12 months - and you have to be there more or less
on a daily basis. It's quite intense.
"It was a good time and we've played also in the
Championship a few times against each other.
"He obviously was a top-class defender and played for
Bayern Munich. He won many, many titles but I think I played once against him
in a friendly, I was the striker and he was a centre-back.
"He was horrible to play against because he was so hard
and tough working, so I was a bit scared!"