Leeds United ticket fever in the dressing room and an unusual Monday but Farke repeats key message — YEP 22/5/24

By Graham Smyth

Players' phones blowing up with ticket requests, fans glued to screens to secure their seat at Wembley - it's a week like no other for Leeds United.

Wembley fever had well and truly set in by the time the weekend rolled around, with the club's ticket system creaking under the weight of tens of thousands of phones and laptops logging in to book a trip to the £150m game. Some were in and out in 30 minutes, others found it a more arduous and error-message-riddled affair - at least for a time. All season ticket holders, at the very least, could cling to that guarantee of a ticket however. Such is the demand that by the time that the deadline had come and gone for those with initial priority, only a limited number of tickets remained to go on sale to club members with five or more match tickets to their name this season. Any admittedly-optimistic hope of general sale availability was all-but extinguished by that word 'limited', in Tuesday's ticket update.

The week began differently, too. Daniel Farke had the players in for a double session that was punctuated by a media event. The local and national press gathered on the indoor astro pitch to speak with a dozen or so members of Farke's squad, about the big game. Ethan Ampadu sat down in front of the cameras while Illan Meslier stood towering over a pair of representatives of the written press. Willy Gnonto and Crysencio Summerville entered the room together, of course. Ilia Gruev made his way to the corner of the room to talk to a press agency and Glen Kamara sat down in the centre circle with the YEP. It was all a bit outside of the norm. But some things, or rather some people, never change. "I don't think anything's changed," said Kamara when asked if Farke was the same this week as he was six weeks or 16 weeks ago. "The demand is always high, regardless, so I don't think anything has changed honestly."

Farke's tune is by now so well known that it could be hummed by just about any supporter or member of the press. The notes never really change. The unerring consistency that his team brought to the pitch between January and March was matched only by his output in front of the microphones. And even with a place in the final booked, Farke made sure that he did not get carried away, so as not to give others his permission to do so. "No one in this club is as greedy as I am to return as quickly as possible [to the Premier League] and of course you're highly motivated now to do it," he began. "If we really do it we can speak about how difficult it was. But first the job has to be done, then we can praise ourselves. It's much too early."

A club as emotional as this one, in a week as fraught with tension and excitement as this one, needs someone with the ability to stay level, flat almost, and provide a measure of reassuring normality. Leeds need to train well this week but they need to know that Farke believes the football they have played all season will be enough, if played correctly. The players need to know that their manager trusts in them, the plan and the methods that have got them here, because that is exactly what did get them to Wembley. "I'm not just happy with the night, but we overcame a difficult run in and believed in what we're doing," he said, after the battering of Norwich City at Elland Road.

This week's preparations will be much like those that were executed at Thorp Arch before each and every game this season. The opposition is one that is well known to everyone at Leeds and the only one that did a double over the Whites this season. Saints pose specific challenges, through their pronounced style of play. But as much as Farke needs to prepare his players to meet those specific challenges, in a way they failed to do on two previous occasions during the regular campaign, he believes focusing on what Leeds want to do themselves will be even more key. It's a message his players have heard before.

"Obviously it's important to prepare your team keeping in mind what the opponent will do, it'll play a pretty important role," he said. "But it's more like to bring our principles on the pitch. We have different scenarios how we bring our principles, against three or four men formations. It will be crucial to analyse, prepare them in the best possible way, how to bring our game on the pitch. We want to be dominant again and bring our strength into this game and be ourselves at Wembley."

If that's the version of 'ourselves' that turned up against Norwich at Elland Road almost a week ago and if Farke can keep his players rooted in the familiar and the normal, maybe even the boring, on a special day, in a special atmosphere, it might be just the ticket to the Premier League that this club requires.