Leeds United suffer injury hammer blow amid fresh surgery and injury absences for Norwich City visit — YEP 30/9/24

By Graham Smyth

Leeds United have been hit with a hammer blow with the knews that skipper Ethan Ampadu will not play again until January.

Ampadu flew into a heavy challenge to win the ball high up the pitch during Saturday's 3-0 win over Coventry City and came off worse, staying down and requiring attention from the medical team. Though the club captain returned to the pitch he was unable to run off the knee problem and was replaced by Ao Tanaka.

Daniel Farke has confirmed that the Welshman has damaged his lateral ligament and though he does not need surgery he will not return to training until December.

"A few things we have to speak about today," said Farke. "I have to confirm it's a serious knee injury, he has damanged his lateral ligament. The doctors have recommended conservative treatment so he doesn't need surgery. It's realistic to speak about 10 weeks before he returns to team training. You would expect him to be back at some point during December and obviously he needs a bit of team training before he's available back for the games, so we expect him to be just back available at some point in January."

Leeds expect to be without Daniel James until after the international break after he reinjured his hamstring in training earlier in September. The winger has missed Leeds' last four outings after starting the opening three Championship fixtures. Fellow wide man Manor Solomon has also been out of action for two games having first sustained a back problem that then led to a hamstring issue.

The Whites have also been attempting to adopt a conversative approach regarding Max Wober and the knee injury he picked up during the last international break while on national team duty with Austria, but Farke has had bad news on that front too.

"I can also confirm that Max Wober is set for surgery tomorrow, meniscus repair, we expect him to be out for about six weeks until he's back in training," said Farke.

"We will travel without Daniel James, Manor Solomon and Isaac Schmidt - he has reported some glute problems. We have a few problems but you can't feel too sorry for yourself. Of course it's not great but you have to get on with it and find some other solutions. Some other players have to step up. The last game for example Ao Tanaka played more minutes, Joe Rothwell was already involved, so we have some other options."

Leeds' centre-back pairing Pascal Struijk and Joe Rodon came through Saturday's win over the Sky Blues without further issue, having recently suffered groin and hip problems respectively. Farke confirmed: "They are available for the game. You're always a bit concerned, three games in six days is a bit mad but we know this, we're used to it. We have to be smart."