Leeds United v Portsmouth: Daniel Farke has done his grieving and is ready to embrace favourites tag — Yorkshire Post 10/8/24

By Stuart Rayner

Daniel Farke has done his grieving and is ready to embrace the favourites tag hung around Leeds United's neck.

If the more pessimistic Whites supporters will look at the departures of the best and most promising players in last season's Championship – Crysecnio Summerville and Archie Gray respectively – and fear the worst, most second-tier observers have far more faith in last year's beaten play-off finalists.

Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton Town do not strike the same fear as relegated Leicester City and Southampton last year, and it would take a lot for lightning to strike twice and one of the promoted sides, led by Saturday's visitors Portsmouth, to follow Ipswich Town's lead by going up in successive seasons.

So it is Leeds the punters are piling on. Some would complain about the millstone, make excuses about financial fair play holding them back and above all beg for time – not least to find a replacement for Summerville. Farke knows better than to ask.

He had to endure the pain of seeing his side not only blow automatic promotion that looked theirs for the taking when they came back from the final international break of the season but a second chance against Southampton at Wembley.

It took Farke a couple of weeks when watching football held no appeal but the hunger is back.

The pressure is too. You do not mess up as Leeds did in the spring without some fingers pointing in the direction of the dugout, and a start as slow as last season's – under far more trying circumstances – will crank up the crankiness.

"When this club plays in the Championship we could sell all our players and ask Eddie Gray (officially past his glorious best now he is 76) to wear the shirt one more time for the opening day and the bookies would still have us as favourites," he argues, matter-of-factly.

"This is what we're all about and I don't want to hide behind this.

"This club is second to none in its fanbase, this club is so, so big in its tradition and everyone (inside it) wants this club to succeed. When you look at how many shirts we sell and how much excitement we create in the whole country, it feels like each of our games will be big so we always have a high noon kick-off every Saturday and are live on the telly.

"We will have strange kick-off times again and I'm struggling to complain because this club is so full of excitement and everyone who is connected with this club wants us to succeed.

"I know we won't be able to talk us to promotion or just do it by shirt-selling or whatever. For this club and this group of players it's even more difficult than for any other club, for any other group of players to get promoted because for each of our opponents they have always their most important game of the season against us.

"They leave their hearts out there, they run more, they get cards and three days later when they are exhausted they play our rivals for promotion three days later they can't run any more, it's any easy win for them.

"But I don't complain about this. This is what this club is all about and I want to work for such a club. It's great. We have to deal with it."

If Farke came out swinging on Thursday, it has not been like that all summer. In the subdued Wembley press room in May, he absolutely refused to start spouting defiance. It was for him part of the process.

"First of all I picked myself up," he explains. "This is quite important because I need to lead the group.

"It was not possible the first two or three days because you have to work. We started to finalise the planning because it wasn't clear when the pre-season starts (with the Premier League kicking off a week later) and the (transfer) targets we had in our head for a potential Premier League return are not realistic any more.

"The first week was more or less work to prepare for pre-season, or at least the first four or five days, then I needed two weeks without me thinking about football.

"Sometimes a telephone call was necessary but overall I tried to stay away from football a bit. I didn't watch too much of the (European Championship) tournament in Germany, I was not tempted to go to any games because I didn't want to see much football then – yes, the bigger games with England and Germany but not too many.

"But after two weeks of recharging you feel football is sometimes heartbreaking but you also miss it a little bit. This feeling increases from day to day.

"The second part of the summer break was already working but in a quite relaxed mode.

"The first day back is always the best feeling to smell and feel the grass again and work with the players on the pitch. Once you're standing there with a new group you don't feel the heartbreak any more.

"Then it's more excited. Everyone's there with a smile on his face and wants to play and wants to have the ball.

"Since this moment we've been working towards the opening day and wanted to make sure we prepare ourselves in the best possible way to play a successful season."

The pressure starts again at 12.30pm on Saturday.