'Made it clear' — Daniel Farke reveals Leeds United transfer message after Ramazani signing but shines spotlight elsewhere — YEP 23/8/24

By Graham Smyth

Daniel Farke lauded Leeds United's bravery in a 2-0 victory at Sheffield Wednesday that he felt was almost the perfect away performance.

The Whites dominated their Yorkshire rivals after a frenetic start to the game and took the lead through Brenden Aaronson, before taking the game away from the hosts in the second half with Daniel James' dinked finish.

There were chances for Mateo Joseph and Pascal Struijk but once James' goal went in the result was never really in doubt. Victory came against a backdrop of adversity and fan frustration.

Leeds had failed to win any of their opening three outings of the campaign and losing Crysencio Summerville and Georginio Rutter has left Farke light in terms of senior options. The bench on Friday night boasted two goalkeepers and a 16-year-old prospect in Sam Chambers. But there was little in the performance that suggested Leeds were in a difficult moment.

"It was definitely our best performance of the season, next step forward, nearly a perfect away performance," said Farke.

"I'm pretty pleased, we were able to dominate with our possession. We played pretty brave and dominant against one of the best in-form sides. In 2024 we are the side who has won the most points, I think Sheffield Wednesday is in second place. Their first home game was a 4-0 win for them, they play aggressive, press high.

“To come here and dominate, we didn't allow one chance, perhaps a long throw in and a header but we were pretty dominant in our possession. We were better to create chances. First goal you can put it into your album for best practice possession football from build up to the finish. And the second, after a good winning of the ball, more or less the same. Not over the moon just because we're there with an away win, we had many of those last season, but to show it under really difficult circumstances - I'm pretty happy for the boys."

Willy Gnonto was singled out as a key player in the match by opposition boss Danny Rohl and Farke agreed, calling the Italian international 'unplayable' at times during the Hillsborough encounter.

"We've worked a lot with Willy in recent months," said Farke. "We want him to be more flexible in his movements, so he covers different positions and isn't too static. We work a lot with him individually and show him different scenes. He was at times unplayable. He's still a young player and can be a bit smarter to handle some situations on the pitch. A step forward from him but one we expect from a player of his calibre."

Farke wanted to leave the transfer talk for another time, despite welcoming £10 million winger Largie Ramazani to the squad 24 hours prior to the game. The Belgian was signed too late to be involved against Wednesday but is seen as a replacement for Summerville.

Farke wants another three new faces to join him, but his main topic of conversation on Friday night was those who contributed to the win.

"I don't want to speak too much about the players not involved with us today and who will come in the next days, obviously from tomorrow he [Ramazani] will train with us," said Farke.

"I want to spotlight a bit more the players who were involved and perhaps in the next weeks are not that much in the spotlight, like young players like Sam Chambers, or Alex Cairns.

“Obviously it's good we have Largie signed and [I] have made it clear we definitely need a few more if we want to be ambitious. Just with a squad of 12, 13 senior players, for this emotional and ambitious club to be successful it's not possible.

“We have a good group to build on, we showed this today but we will also need a few additions and then we speak about them when they have trained with us. At the moment all the players deserve to be in the spotlight that were involved tonight."

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