James was one of two senior players sitting out the 4-1 victory, which came thanks to goals from Ilia Gruev, Joel Piroe and Mateo Joseph, who bagged two. The Welsh international returned to the team base during the fixture to watch on from the sidelines, alongside Patrick Bamford, as the club’s medical team continue to manage the latter’s workload. Bamford had surgery on a knee problem that ended his season prematurely but has been able to train with the first team in Germany and could feature at some point during the second friendly of the trip.
Farke said: “Daniel felt something a little bit yesterday in his adductors after a really lot of training load, so we didn’t want to risk anything. Today it was already much improved but we didn’t want to risk anything especially because we know this area he struggled two or three times last season so especially for that it was a bit more precaution. We scanned him during the game, I don’t know any results, I don’t expect any negative outcome, so I think just a question of days and not weeks until he is fully back.”
As for Bamford, Farke is happy to take the cautious approach with a player who has suffered more than his fair share of injury issues in recent seasons. The manager said: “Patrick, if we are really honest since the end of April he was not involved in team training, so it means like he was out for much more than eight weeks. But then he has rehabbed and in this week he has been in parts of team training he was involved. We need to be careful until he is really ready and fit for a game. We have to be careful and at his age we want to prepare him in a perfect way. It’s not like after being out for 10 or 11 weeks and just two team sessions with 80 or 90 per cent of the load we don’t send him straightaway into the game, so we’ll be careful but he’s in training and also edging closer.”
Farke was content with what he saw from those who did feature in the friendly. Leeds dominated possession for the most part and were well worth their victory, while Hannover created just a couple of good chances and scored from Leeds’ only real sloppiness in defence during the second half. “With both halves I was pretty pleased,” said Farke. “I think we started on the front foot against a really good opponent today. We fully deserved a 2-0 lead, they changed their base formation a few times and pressed us with aggressiveness, intensity and tried to set some signs. I think we were pretty focused in the first half and the second half was even more challenging, because it’s also a proud side, they haven’t lost one game so far in pre-season and are one of the big favourites for promotion to the Bundesliga. So, they are already used to winning games and it was clear they wanted to show a reaction. We had also many changes during the half time and then stayed focused, switched on, and to defend pretty well until the end, to keep going and creating chances to score goals. It’s especially in pre-season when you’re all tired, it’s not that easy, so I am pretty happy with the performance.”
