Leeds United boss Daniel Farke on 'dominant' Championship loss to Burnley, Patrick Bamford and Scott Parker's take on key penalty call — Yorkshire Post 14/9/24
By Leon Wobschall
LEEDS UNITED head coach Daniel Farke stressed that he was
happy with his side’s level of performance against Burnley, despite witnessing
a 1-0 reverse at Elland Road as they made a losing start after returning to
action following the international break.
The only goal of the game came on 18 minutes when Luca
Koleosho raced clear after a slip from Manor Soloman and netted in clinical
fashion.
Clinical was not the word to describe Leeds, with Mateo
Joseph missing a huge early chance, while Willy Gnonto missed a one-on-one
opportunity later in the first period with impressive Clarets keeper James
Trafford making a big save.
Trafford also made two key second-half saves to deny Joseph
and Ethan Ampadu, whle Leeds saw a very strong penalty shout rebuffed in the
opening 45 minutes when Solomon went down following a challenge from behind by
Joe Worrall.
Despite his side not being as convincing on the resumption,
Farke felt that United’s performance, given the fact it was straight after the
international break when a host of players were on duty with their countries
with training time being minimal and against a promotion favourite, was good in
the circumstances.
Farke said: “Of course, it is the most frustrating thing in
football, when you go back to the dressing room and hardly explain how you
didn’t win this game. If I am honest, after this difficult international break
and just one training session together and with so many players travelling, I
didn’t expect we would be that dominant in how we played. I was really, really
happy with our dominance and how we started on the front foot. We dominated
each and every statistic and where we have to be self-critical is that in the
decisive moments of the game, we were not effective.
"We should have scored after two minutes with a better
finish. Mateo (Joseph) was one against one with the goalkeeper, Willy Gnonto
also had a great chance, one against one.
"Of course, we should have had a penalty as well. We
had nine corners to their one and the only team who score from a corner is them
(Burnley) from a corner to us.
"Manor is there with a wrong decision. He can play the
ball back or wide. He decided to turn around and want to go one against one and
it was a decision he didn’t have to take. He slipped and they were away with an
85-yard counter-attack. And it was a really effective finish.
"We had even better, easier chances and didn’t take
them and we need to be self-critical."
Farke’s opposite number Scott Parker expressed his delight
after his side’s victory at Elland Road and was non-committal regarding the
controversial penalty incident in the first half. He said: “It’s a massive
three points for us. It’s obviously a tough place to come, certainly where we
are in the stages of development as well. It’s a very, very good three points.
The foundation what got us the result was everything that we need to stand for
as a team – grit, determination and battling spirit to a man. We showed every
bit of that and ultimately it was the reason we got the three points.”
On the penalty conjecture, he added: “I am not sitting on
the fence, I have not seen it. I didn’t think it was in real time, to be
honest. It looks like he gets a toe on it, so it’d be unfair on me to comment
on that.”
Farke confirmed that Patrick Bamford returned to full
training earlier this week, but says he was not ready to be involved against
the Clarets. He commented: “He was out of team training for 11 weeks and then
back in team training for three weeks and at the end of pre-season, he again
missed a few weeks. He’s been back in team training since Tuesday and it’s
important he regains his match fitness. It is important to have a player of
this quality and experience back fully fit for the games. It’s also important
for him to have another full week. He’s been back in training for four days
after a really difficult 17 weeks.”