How Daniel Farke reacted to Leeds United FA Cup win despite change difficulty and 'resting' key man — YEP 7/1/24

Daniel Farke was delighted his Leeds United side coped so well with major changes on a 'perfect day' in the FA Cup at Peterborough United.

By Graham Smyth

The Whites boasted six changes in their starting line-up as Farke went with Ethan Ampadu at centre-back and put Archie Gray back into midfield next to Ilia Gruev. There was still no room for centre-back Charlie Cresswell in the matchday squad, however, as Leeds dumped League One Posh out of the cup with a 3-0 win.

Speaking after the game Farke had nothing new to say on Cresswell's situation, insisting that nothing had changed, even though the manager did not want to risk Liam Cooper who sat on the bench and once again relied on Ampadu for another 90-minute performance.

The way his men put a high-flying League One side to the sword left Farke suitably impressed. "Yes [job done] but in a pretty good manner because we expected a difficult game. A side who is sitting in the top positions in League One is always a side playing with Championship quality more or less. Peterborough just good results in recent weeks, just wins or draws, they were unbeaten. Here, in their home game, they played the best starting 11 and they were on it. It was a difficult game. I'm pretty pleased that we were able to win this game, in a tight game also, but still comfortably with three goals and a clean sheet. I'm quite happy. We were on it in this game. We rested a few, gave some valuable minutes to players who really needed them but we still wanted to win it. It's never easy when you have so many changes. Ethan and Archie played in different positions. But we were really focused and concentrated and greedy to win it. We wanted to score this third goal, this was our mentality, knowing it would be difficult to win this game. But we're into the fourth round."

The undoubted highlight of the afternoon at London Road was a second half wondergoal from Patrick Bamford, who made it two in two with a volley on the turn from outside the area that flew past keeper Fynn Talley. Farke was more concerned with the striker's general contribution than the panache with which he found the net, but could not hide his delight for Bamford.

"He's on the right path, for sure," said Farke. "The whole world will praise him, it's a world-class goal and I have no other words for this. I'm delighted for him, he deserves it. For me it's more important that he's back to his fitness level, back to his rhythm, has his confidence back. It's important he works for the team, he's good in the pressing, he's good on the ball, holds the ball and links the play well. I would have taken a rebound from two yards because goals are priceless for the confidence but yes if he scores in such a world-class way it's even better. The most important thing is that he's healthy, his body works right now and he's coming more and more back to his perfect shape. He's important to us."

Farke was also over the moon with what he got out of Ampadu at centre-back, a position the Welsh international knows well having featured there extensively in his career so far. The manager said: "Ethan has played more or less more games in the centre of defence compared to the midfield role. I brought him in with the intention to play him as a holding midfielder because we got the feeling to get good balance, he would bring this to us and he has been fantastic in this role. Today it was perhaps an emergency case, Pascal Struijk was not there, Liam Cooper had a reaction after the last game and we didn't want to risk it and we thought it was more or less like resting Ethan because he doesn't have to run this much in the centre-back position.

"He's capable to show some good performances on this position and the additional energy he normally invests in running in midfield he invested in set-pieces to score two goals. It was the perfect day for us and also perfect for Ethan."