Daniel Farke, the manager of Leeds United, has disclosed the challenges his team faced and overcame to defeat Hull City and earn three “pricesless” points.
Leeds put up a lackluster display to make things difficult for themselves, but in the end, their talent was evident as they surged away from the visitors in the closing minutes to win 3-1 at Elland Road. Sam Byram scored the first goal with an early back-post header, while Hull earned a point through a flick from Liverpool loanee Fabio Carvalho.
Both teams had chances in the second half, with Leeds’ Mateo Joseph hitting the post, but a penalty sealed the victory. After defeating Regan Slater to earn the spot-kick and winning a debate with Joel Piroe, Crysencio Summerville struck the ball straight down the middle to make it 2-1. Hull was attempting to equalize in stoppage time but Leeds capitalized on Ryan Allsop’s empty net to launch a set-piece attack, with Daniel James scoring from a full 45 yards out.
Willy Gnonto, Connor Roberts, and Ilia Gruev were out for Leeds, but those were not the only issues Farke had to deal with when selecting a lineup to play the Tigers.
“I think there’s no doubt it was a well deserved win,” he said. “We had six times the amount of expected goals they had, but it was complicated due to many reasons. It was the third game in six days for many of my players, with a relentless schedule, then we had many players with problems on the pitch. Glen Kamara played more or less ill but I wanted him to go through this game. Cree Summerville had some problems, we had a short morning session and Joe Rodon played with painkillers – he had some back spasms. Sam Byram told me at half-time he couldn’t sprint anymore. Thank God Jamie Shackleton is back but he’s more or less without game rhythm for ages and I wanted to have Sam with his maturity and strength and set-pieces on the pitch for as long as possible.”
The biggest complication, according to Farke, was the quality of the opposition. Hull City made life hard for their hosts and enjoyed plenty of the ball in the first half especially. It took an important block from Rodon to keep Hull out in stoppage time as they pressed for a leveller, and Leeds then went on to score the third and add daylight. “We played a really good side, really good possession side,” said Farke. “Their results against the top sides [of late], they never lose, they’re either with a win or a draw because they have many good footballers. They set traps and if you go and press them too much they can hurt you by attacking the space in behind with lots of quality. It’s a really good side and we didn’t want to go into this trap. We allowed them a bit more possession, in areas where they couldn’t hurt us, but we were a bit too poor in possession ourselves. You can lose nerves but we stayed mentally strong. It was important in the second half to play a bit more aggressive. We put more and more pressure on them, could have and should have scored and then thank God with the penalty and the third goal we earned the win. In a pretty tight game I’m pleased with this.”
Farke was quizzed on the penalty row that ensued when, with Piroe having already spotted the ball, Summerville entered the penalty area to lift it and take over. Leeds skipper Ethan Ampadu got involved to usher Piroe away and the Dutchman was visibly unimpressed until his compatriot found the net.
“We wanted to score and everyone wanted to make sure we scored,” said Farke. “It was difficult. Cree was our taker on the team sheet. Today we didn’t have many natural born takers on the pitch and our second taker, thank God he didn’t have to. Normally when I subsitute Joel in he’s the first man but I don’t like you to take a penalty when you’re on for 30 seconds, you need to have a few touches. There was some confusion. It was definitely the right decision for Cree to take it and thank God he scored. Joel was there with an assist for the third, so pretty pleased for both of them.”
