Leeds United 'surprised' by Cardiff City call as midfield swap thinking is revealed — YEP 23/9/24
By Graham Smyth
Daniel Farke says Cardiff City surprised Leeds United with
their starting formation on Saturday and has explained an unexpected switch of
his own.
The Whites handled the league's bottom side comfortably,
almost from the off, without being able to properly reflect their superiority
or dominance in the scoreline. Cardiff went down to 10 men with a first-half
red card for Joel Bagan but it took 87 minutes for the visitors to open up a
two-goal cushion and remove any nerves over an ill-deserved equaliser in the
final stages. Largie Ramazani's 30th-minute opener was followed up by
substitute Joel Piroe's late strike as Leeds bounced back from defeat by Burnley
a week prior.
Cardiff, who sacked manager Erol Bulut in the wake of the
loss - their fifth in six league outings - had lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation
for each game prior to Leeds' visit. But, perhaps hoping to frustrate Farke's
attackers in the same way Burnley did, they changed to a 5-4-1 on Saturday.
There was an unusual twist to the way Leeds lined up too,
with a central midfield swap evident in the first half. Ilia Gruev favoured the
left-hand side of midfield and Ethan Ampadu appeared to his right. Farke said
that was situational in the main but also linked to how Leeds wanted to
progress the ball.
"At times," said Farke. "It was also a bit
like due to the situation, how we wanted to build up the game. So, like I
mentioned, so we have our clear principles, but we also want to be flexible in
terms of how we want to play forward and also to progress our game. And it
differs also sometimes from game to game, they have different skills. So at
times, it was a bit due to the situation, then also that they surprised us with
the five-man formation in the beginning. Then they switched back after the red
card, more like to a 4-4-1, later on, to a 4-3-2 against the ball. And we
wanted to be flexible and also unpredictable a little bit, and want to have
special players in different situations. But we didn't go too much away from
what we in general wanted to do, it was just a small detail."
Farke has stuck with his first-choice midfield pairing of
Ampadu and Gruev since the season began, in the Championship at least, but does
now have the option to give the centre of the park a more attacking profile.
The loan signing of Joe Rothwell from Bournemouth and a £3.5m deal for Japan
international Ao Tanaka will give Farke more offensive resources than he had in
midfield last season, but neither have started a league game yet. Both Rothwell
and Tanaka came off the bench against Burnley, the latter getting four minutes
of regulation time, and against Cardiff they were 90th-minute introductions.
If either of the new boys is looking for encouragement when
it comes to breaking into the midfield picture then it is, ironically enough,
Gruev who can provide it. The Bulgarian international had to exercise patience
in the first half of last season, starting just once before December 29 but
then becoming a mainstay of Farke's side, with Ampadu dropping back into the
defence.
Though both Ampadu and Gruev are considered defensive
midfielders, the latter has been finding himself involved further up the pitch
this season and with greater license to roam. In the whole of last season he
recorded 207 touches of the ball in the attacking third, whereas after just six
outings this term he has recorded 133. He has 12 key passes [passes that lead
directly to a shot] to last season's 17 and has already racked up a third of
his 2023/24 passes into the final third. Last season's tally of seven completed
passes into the 18-yard box is also under threat, with three recorded already -
two of which came at Cardiff. And he has matched the 11 shots he sent goalward
in his debut campaign. But to date the 24-year-old is, like Ampadu, without an
assist or a goal to his name.