Leeds United boss Daniel Farke makes Brighton defeat admission but pulls out positives — Yorkshire Evening Post 1/11/25

By Graham Smyth

Daniel Farke saw his Leeds United side suffer a fifth Premier League defeat of the season through a 3-0 loss at Brighton.

Daniel Farke admitted Leeds United were decidedly second best in defeat at Brighton but drew positives from certain reactions.

The Whites went a goal down on 11 minutes when poor defending allowed Danny Welbeck to net his sixth of the season.

Though Leeds had plenty of the ball in the rest of the first half they did relatively little with it.

A toothless attacking performance continued in the second half and more slack, messy defending further hampered them.

By the 70th minute it was over, Diego Gomez netting the second of his two goals after good work from Georginio Rutter.

When it was put to Farke that his side were not competitive in the way they have been in other games this season, he responded: "I agree. We don’t have to over-analyse the game, they were the better side, deserved to win the game. There's no sugar-coating.

“Overall the game was quite equal, 50:50 possession but you have to be honest, out of their possession and set-pieces they created way more and were more clinical and deserved to win."

Farke was less able to say why that was the case, but pointed to key periods in the game when his side did not do what they needed to do.

"Why is always a bit more difficult," he began. "There were a few key moments. We didn't start quite well. First 10, 15 we were not really brave and confident in possession.

“They were able to score the goal out of this. They want to invite you, wait until you open the block. If you're 1-0 down in an away game it's quite difficult. After that we were way better, sadly delivery quality was not like in the last game, we missed the final pass.

“The start to the second half was not bad, we had good situations and the feeling was if we equalised then we could maybe turn the game.

"But yes, obviously, then we gave the two 2-0 and 3-0 in just a couple of minutes, very cheaply given away. For the second we didn't track the run, and the third more or less assisted to Georginio Rutter a little bit in possession, and opened the gates for him. This was of course, crucial. If you are then 3-0, it's difficult."

Farke felt the positives were that his side's reaction to going behind, their start to the second half and their refusal to let things get any worse once the game was lost.

"We showed spirit," he insisted. "If you're 3-0 down you need to show togetherness and we did. Lukas [Nmecha] had a great chance, could have taken it a bit more inside to finish it. We tried everything to get a foot back in. The mentality after being 3-0 down was okay."

But while he admitted Leeds were not good enough and got what they deserved, he believes that has been a rare occurrence this season. Asked why Leeds have struggled offensively on the road at times, he said: "First because we're newly promoted side, we don't travel to places like Arsenal, Fulham or Brighton and play them off the park.

“In several away games, for example Fulham, Wolves, we've created an unbelievable Expected Goals. Normally we'd be in the top six with that. Not today.

“I would imagine it's not too much today. It's a fair assessment we were not good enough. When you have 10 game days now and again a game like this comes around. Today was probably the second game in the season, after Arsenal, when we say the opponent was better."