Daniel Farke's Leeds United press conference highlights including Ramazani back soon and clean bill of health — YEP 22/11/24

By Joe Donnohue

Leeds United manager Daniel Farke hosts his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon, ahead of the Whites' visit to Swansea City this weekend.

Leeds have been given the benefit of a Sunday afternoon kick-off following this month's international break, unlike four weeks ago when the team were expected to play Sheffield United on a Friday evening.

This should allow Farke the opportunity to hold at least one full training session with his first-team squad before travelling to South Wales, which the manager deems necessary for his match preparation.

In terms of absentees, Junior Firpo remains unavailable for this weekend's fixture. The Dominican Republic full-back serves match two of a three-game suspension for violent conduct at the Swansea.com Stadium.

Farke is expected to provide an update on the members of his squad who are currently out injured, such as Ilia Gruev, Ethan Ampadu and Largie Ramazani, as well as information pertaining to any issues picked up over the last 10 days when no fewer than 13 Leeds players went away with their countries.

Summer signing Ramazani has impressed supporters since arriving from UD Almeria this summer and was initially given a four-to-six week window of recovery after sustaining ankle ligament damage in the recent victory over Watford, exactly one month ago.

Daniel Farke pre-match press conference LIVE

Farke on midfield options

I’m delighted for Charlie [Crew], to be there [with Wales] at the age of 18, it’s priceless. On the other hand you wish for some minutes for him. Perhaps the int’l break is the time to have a few minutes in the training games we have at Thorp Arch sometimes. It’s always fine margins. It’s important for us to have Joss Guilavogui with us. Always sometimes a bit tricky to get all wishes under one perfect solution for the players. I have to give credit to Wales, the communication is excellent, if it’s the manager of the academy or Craig Bellamy. Everyone understands we want to do the best for the players. We have many players for the Welsh team so we’re quite an important club for them.

Farke on preparing for Luton and if other people are doing analysis in meantime groundwork

My approach is game-after-game, just focus on this game and don’t overthink too much. You don’t know how the first game is, successful or draw or unlucky loss, you have to react in different way. It’s important that in the background my analysis staff does stuff on Luton and Blackburn. Myself when the stuff is done, and we’re also like, on tomorrow evening in the hotel, sometimes I watch a few Luton scenes in the Swansea hotel, but I don’t distract or discuss this with players until after the game. Sunday evening on, we concentrate on preparing for Luton. Something has to be prepared. I can’t watch their last eight games so it’s important my staff analyse, which scenes I have to watch, give me lots of info, don’t have to do all the research myself. It’s not a one-man show anymore, if you want to be prepared in the perfect way.

Farke on working with academy and player development

I’m not a friend of praising the young lads too much. It’s a different animal, senior and youth level. I’m far away from overinterpreting this. We have different cornerstones that are important as a club. We try to take the best decisions. The academy tries to bring as many players through because it’s a testament of the work. The scouting department wants to bring as many players in. I totally get this but I try to be there to overlook all this and take the best decisions as what’s best for the club. You need a good mix building the squad out of youth and energy. Young players who are desperate to raise their game and identify with the club, and some older more experienced players. If you allow one department to decide, it’s never balanced. It’s always helpful and beneficial if you have top quality people in the right positions. I have to say, Martin [Diggle] in the academy, we had a really good relationship, Scott with our U21s we speak about players and what’s necessary, there’s an understanding.

Farke on player workload

For this Swansea game you like it a bit more. It makes the upcoming schedule more difficult, three games in six days and the time for recovery is not long. As a manager I prefer this to have two training sessions back with the team. Last time we had Friday vs Sheffield United, we were excellent without a training session - not sure what this says about my training sessions or as a manager. I find it beneficial and hope the players do as well.

Farke on a player's international performance sways selection decisions

It has an influence. If a player has an unbelievably poor game. But it matters here. For example the players here with us, Pascal was not called up for the Netherlands shouldn’t give him a disadvantage for us. It’s important to have a good international spell for confidence. Mateo scored. I think it’s a boost for him. It’s always better when they perform well but I think it’s also fair that I take more into account when we are in training and the games before. I have an eye on it. Players come back sharp in a good mood and you take into account but I’m not over-interpreting.

Farke on tight games vs Swansea

It’s not easy to score goals against them especially due to the fact they’re so much in possession. I have to say they’re well-structured against the ball. I don’t expect it’s a game where we create ten 1-v-1 situations on the goalkeeper. We must focus and really grab the chance. I like a lot what they do in build-up and midfield play, it’s why they’re in control of a lot of games, I like their processes. Credit to their manager, I like a lot what they do. The only thing you can criticise is perhaps cutting edge in the final third. Cullen will play with confidence after brace [for Wales]. We are respectful. I think it’s a really good side. Hopefully they won’t add this cutting edge in the final third on Sunday.

Farke on Swansea goals

I’m pretty respectful. All the teams were struggling to score more than one goal against them. Always conceding just one goal and quite often clean sheet. Good possession side, second highest in the league behind us. It’s not easy to get the ball. This is one of the key reasons it’s hard to score against them. We want to make sure we dominate possession than all the opponents had against Swansea. We know we have to be more efficient with our conversion rate perhaps in some of our last games. We know we have to be on it and make sure we create as many chances as possible in a dominant position during the game.

Farke on changes in recruitment

In general, these are decisions for our key people. I’m not running the club, I’m running the sport. I will not comment on that in public. But you can be sure internally I give my view and give my thoughts to this topic. Just what affects me right now is the step up of Alex [Davies] and Adam Underwood. I’ve worked with him before with the academy and young players, we had a fantastic relationship, the development of Archie Gray or Charlie Crew, Sam Chambers, James Debayo - Adam plays an important role. I think it can be positive. Alex, I’ve worked with before because he was in charge of scouting, good relationship, we work closer now and a bit more intense. I have to praise Paraag [Marathe] for this. New owners sometimes take their own people into key positions. We have two lads in Adam and Alex who’ve worked here for decades. The first view is what do we have within the club, perhaps we can develop. We don’t want to develop just players, but staff. It’s always great to promote and develop people in the staff in leading roles with only white blood in their veins. It says a lot about how wisely our owners act with such decisions. It’s not for me to judge but in general terms, I think it’s a quite important picture.

Farke on using stats with players

Statistics are important. It’s not just about subjective impression. It’s also important to listen to the data and be objective and analyse what you’ve done. It’s not old school 40 years ago, just the gut feel of the manager. Nowadays you have specialists in topics, it’s not a one-man show. To analyse in a scientific way, it’s good and to be there with an objective view. Nowadays the players are so well-educated due to the scientific, modern work in academies with the tools from 30 years ago, you can’t convince them. They expect you to work on the highest level, to be a bit ahead of it, state of the art. Statistics is not everything. Still the only one that matters is to score goals and avoid goals. There is no replacement for three points. I think there’s a quote from Brian Clough, ‘we were a good team on paper but the game was played on grass’. I like this. We know statistics say we should be on position one, there are some things to work on.

Farke on what he and players have been up to during international break

First and foremost recovering because this league is a marathon. You need energy and quality in the final stages when it comes to March, April, May. From now on until the next break in March there is more or less no breaks. So many league games, FA Cup. During this period, the table will be made. It was important during first week of the int’l break to calm the load, give the lads a bit of time off. Then we had three good training days. Concentrate on some individual work with the players who were here. Also beneficial to do exercises you don’t do when 20 players are around. This week it was to build up for Swansea game. To prepare with a smaller group then step by step the big group.

Farke on team news

We have at least two training sessions with the lads compared to last int’l break. Good news for the players who were away on int’l duty, all came back without new injuries or illness. Brenden had a little illness but everything is okay, he’s back. It was quite beneficial for him after lots of load. Bad news with Isaac Schmidt, he needed a little hernia surgery, he will definitely miss out [vs Swansea]. Hope to have him back in training next week. Apart from this Max Wober came back after 90 minutes [for Austria]. Bit concerned he played 90 mins straight out of the cold. Knee reacted a little bit. We had to look after him this week. Good with him. Largie joined us for first time in parts of team training this week. Next week, three games in six days will come a bit too soon for starting lineup but could be a topic for the squad.