Daniel Farke takes his Leeds side to Brighton for a tenth Premier League clash of the season this Saturday.
Hopes are high in Yorkshire after a 2-1 win against West Ham last time out, which took Leeds up to 11 points from nine games.
No promoted side across the last ten seasons has been relegated after accumulating that many points within ten outings let alone nine.
Brighton – however – represent a tough opponent, and it is imperative for Leeds not to repeat the sloppiness which irked Jesse Marsch back in August 2022.
Jesse Marsch slammed Leeds players for ignoring his game plan
Last time Leeds visited the Amex Stadium, they came away with nothing after a 1-0 defeat.
Marsch was frustrated, accusing his players of “freestyling” and allowing emotion to take over the “plan” he put in place.
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Leeds Live quoted the American as saying: “We had guys freestyling with and without the ball. Staying true to the match plan needed to be better. Emotion would take over last season and we would not play to the plan.”
Brighton – who can deploy Georginio Rutter against his old side – are no fools, and possess a number of talented players such as Yankuba Minteh, Danny Welbeck and Carlos Baleba, so Leeds cannot afford to repeat this tactical sloppiness on Saturday.
Daniel Farke sounds confident his Leeds players will not stray away from his tactical ideas
While Marsch – who oversaw a better start in the 2022/23 season compared to this term – opted to hang his players out to dry in public, Farke backed his squad in the media as recently as last month.
Before the 3-1 win at Wolves, the German said: “They all know how much I trust them. If not, they wouldn’t be in our squad. I back them to improve from two or three years ago.”
A respectable three wins and two draws from nine Premier League games so far this season suggests Leeds players respect Farke and are buying into his ideas, so we would be very surprised if they do ignore his tactics at the Amex Stadium this Saturday like Marsh experienced in 2022.