Daniel Farke refutes Leeds United 'villain' tag and admits worry after blistering start v Watford — YEP 23/10/24

By Graham Smyth

Leeds United boss Daniel Farke was worried by his side’s lightning fast start against Watford so a 2-1 victory left him delighted.

The Whites appeared to be en route to a rout when they raced to a 2-0 lead inside seven minutes. Largie Ramazani’s shot was fumbled into the net by keeper Daniel Bachmann and the stopper then parried a cross straight to Brenden Aaronson who doubled the hosts’ lead. But the floodgates never opened. The first half evened out, Watford stemmed the tide and then made things more interesting with a goal inside 90 seconds of the restart.

Leeds had chances to pull further in front - Jayden Bogle hit the woodwork and substitute Mateo Joseph missed a sitter from a wonderful Daniel James cross - but the game finished without further scoring.

Farke’s concern was that Leeds had gone ahead so early that a situation he has experienced many times would ensue. “First of all I'm really happy with the three points,” he said. “I was worried after 10 minutes when we were 2-0 up. I've experienced so often this situation. Everyone praises us after a magical evening, the national press, Sky, the opponents' manager [Chris Wilder] says no one will finish above this team and you go into the next game against a really physical side, experienced, good team and go 2-0 up. It almost always leads to a situation where you do one step less, there is an unlucky moment and after such a start you quite often drop points and say you went ahead too early.

“But we can't criticise anything, we created many more good chances, the only thing that was missing was the third goal. Largie Ramazani came off, Manor Solomon had to play longer than I wanted. We had 10 to 15 poor minutes at the beginning of the second half but nothing major. We lost a few duels, underestimating the situation and a bit unlucky that they scored the first goal. Then normally you show a reaction because you get nervous and the crowd gets nervous and normally you drop deeper. We did the opposite. Pushed them and they had no more chances. If you don't score the third you still have to be awake and play without mistakes and that's what we did. How the lads reacted was excellent.

Farke was also full of praise for the Elland Road support for the way they responded to the second half adversity. “I have to say to our supporters, big, big compliment,” he said. “It felt in this moment we need them and they need to be there after so many sucker punches in the last weeks with injuries. They made sure we stayed awake and played on the front foot. A well deserved three points and an excellent performance.”

Leeds’ star performer on the night was undoubtedly Ao Tanaka who followed up a superb display against Sheffield United with an even better one against Watford. It did not go unnoticed by Farke. “I think he was outstanding today,” said the German. “Not sure if I'm allowed to say this or I'll get a ban from the EFL but the lads are doing some jokes about Tiger Tanaka that was a Bond villain. They call him the Tiger Tanaka but I said no, no and labelled him James Bond. He was there with an outstanding performance, calm on the ball, showed steel even on a yellow card. He was not the villain today, he was James Bond for us. He can keep going like this for us.”

The one negative was the early departure of Ramazani through injury. Farke is unclear yet on the extent of the damage to his Belgian winger. He said: “Rolled, twisted his ankle, it was pretty painful. We have to wait for further assessment. I hope for not a bad injury, we deserve a bit of luck.”