Boss pressure and Leeds United's worst case thinking could unleash Farke favourite at Cardiff — YEP 16/9/24

By Graham Smyth

Daniel Farke is a patient man but hearing him rave last week suggests he will be itching to unleash one of his new Leeds United signings.

The evidence of Farke's Elland Road tenure so far tells us that players have to be fit, integrated and well versed in the matchday plan before he will bend to the temptation of starting them. Manor Solomon's quality perhaps made him somewhat of an outlier in how quickly Farke was willing to put the Spurs loanee into the line-up but for the rest of the late arriving summer 2024 transfer cohort it remains a waiting game. Isaac Schmidt is yet to play, Largie Ramazani has had 28 minutes across a pair of cameos and Ao Tanaka has come on for the final four minutes of regulation time, twice.

The first glimpse of Tanaka, at the tail end of a game Leeds were comfortably winning, pointed to a bright, lively, ball-desiring midfielder who wanted to play forward. The second, with Leeds chasing an equaliser in the 1-0 defeat by Burnley, yielded just six touches, none of which were particularly memorable. When he made his entrance, Leeds' shape changed to a three-man defence but the presence of two attack-minded 8s in the middle did very little to help with the task at hand. And even a lengthy stoppage-time period failed to yield any real danger, from the midfield or anywhere. It was messy, incoherent and desperate. And though on one hand Farke was looking to his attackers to step up and create the necessary, his system was unable to create the right conditions for that to happen.

Ordinarily, a new signing at Leeds might well have to get used to cameos, whether in advantageous scenarios like against Hull or less-than-ideal ones against Burnley, until such a time as Farke was convinced they were ready for the starting line-up. But something he said after Saturday's defeat will give hope to Tanaka and perhaps others.

"Normally I would say it always lasts a few weeks until everyone is integrated," he said. "But if I just judge a game without really having them all together on the training pitch, against one of the top favourites for the title, to play that dominant is pretty encouraging. We have to integrate a few players and after a loss it's difficult to speak about, but I'm not too concerned it will take too long."

What's more, Tanaka is a player Farke has wanted in his starting XI for some time. The transfer that brought the 26-year-old to Leeds was a year in the making. "Ao is a player I really admire and if I tell you secrets, I tried, even 12 months ago to sign him, because I was so desperate, even before the scouting [team] knew him, I recommended him because I've also followed him," said Farke. "Obviously, I was in charge in Germany, in the Bundesliga, and he caught my eye, although also in the second time I tried everything, also in last season, to bring him in, because I'm fully convinced of his qualities."

Those qualities would have come in handy over the past 12 months because they fill a void that was obvious in the 2023/24 Leeds United midfield. Where they needed an 8 to take a crack at goal from outside the area or split a defence, they had a ball-retention machine in Glen Kamara. Mobile, combative, slick on the ball but not so creative.

"Really good and tidy on the ball," said Farke of Kamara's replacement, Tanaka. "Good passing skills. He can score goals and find a pass. During his career for the Japanese national team, but also on the second tier in Germany, out of the number eight role he has scored goals, he has assisted. I really, really like him because we also like to dominate the game. We like to dominate possession, and that quite naturally, I like also players who are tidy on the ball and smart and the same for him."

With the high praise came the usual caveat from Farke, that Tanaka is yet to prove himself at this level and will be given time to adapt to English football. But with a central midfield currently staffed by a pair of 6s, in Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev, even if they were enough to beat Sheffield Wednesday and Hull City, Farke knows that time is not something the Championship will give him in abundance. A more attacking profile is what Leeds wanted to give the centre of the park this summer and the addition of both Joe Rothwell and Tanana was not so that they could warm the bench until the final minutes of games. The Burnley game will not be the only one that presents a stubborn, compact defence for Leeds to try and break down.

When he addressed Saturday's defeat, Farke did not want to complain about, but did make mention of the impact of the international break. He quite fairly lamented the missed chances, the errors for the Burnley goal and a debatable refereeing decision. He did not go back into the number 10 debate, even though the game was immediate proof of his concern, voiced after the win over Hull City.

"It's never easy when you when you perhaps don't have this traditional number 10," he said, once the transfer window had closed. "But yeah, we decided as a club to go this way, and we have Brendon [Aaronson] with a specialist on this position. And we have also other players and other options who can play there, like Joel Piroe for example, who is obviously not a traditional number 10, more a finisher from this position. Perhaps one of our wingers can also play in this this position, or we need to be a bit more compact. We have, perhaps not this traditional number 10, Diego Maradona number 10 in our squad. But if you don't have it, then you need to work with other tools. Yeah, of course, in the ideal dream world, would have had also this player right now available, but if we don't have them, then it's not to complain. It's more like, okay, come on, then we work with what we've got. And I'm excited to work with this exciting young group."

Next for this exciting young group, is Cardiff City. How the Bluebirds set up for Leeds will depend largely on who is in charge come Saturday. Erol Bulut is in real danger of getting the bullet from the owners and if that transpires before the weekend then the hosts' approach could change, but as of right now they are not expected to depart from their possession-based game. They have not been the bus-parking type, which might help to explain the concession of so many goals, though of course the arrival of Leeds could prompt a self-defensive change in tack. Exploiting Leeds' most obvious issue would be an obvious goal for any manager, be it a permanent one or a caretaker. Exacerbating the lack of natural incisive option at 10 with a low block and blue bodies everywhere would ask big questions of Farke.

Expecting the worst is what the Whites manager asks of his centre-backs and it might be advised to follow that thinking in training this week. There is no natural number 10 to magically insert into the team if the old problem crops up again, so perhaps the time to integrate and work with his other tools, like Tanaka, will arrive sooner than first thought. Marcelo Bielsa once said that defeat always led to demands for a player who did not play, a quick fix if you will. But Leeds brought Tanaka in specifically to fix problems like the one that plagued them on Saturday. Moving the ball more quickly and intelligently when playing out and linking the midfield and attack more naturally and more incisively to unlock a defence could be vital. Tanaka's skillset could be key.