{"id":102308,"date":"2025-05-15T01:51:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T01:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/102308\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T01:51:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T01:51:28","slug":"come-on-daniel-farke-told-he-never-should-have-played-4m-leeds-midfielder-at-times-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/102308\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Come on\u2019\u2026\u00a0Daniel Farke told he never should have played \u00a34m Leeds midfielder at times this season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Leeds United had one of the Championship\u2019s deepest squads last season, with numerous options for the majority of areas of the team.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daniel Farke<\/a>, in spite of that, made the fewest changes game-to-game between his starting lineups of any Championship<\/a> side, which meant numerous Leeds United<\/a> players featured in more games and minutes than they have ever managed in their respective careers.<\/p>\n

Leeds had issues in goal and Brenden Aaronson was also a frustrating figure at times, but most areas of the Leeds squad<\/a> could be argued as among the best options to choose from in the entire division.<\/p>\n

The central midfield and wide players are perhaps where Leeds had the most to choose from in terms of depth and quality. It meant some players were perhaps underutilised over the course of the season as pairings chopped and changed.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by MI News\/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesEFL expert Ali Maxwell makes Ilia Gruev and Joe Rothwell claim<\/p>\n

Ilia Gruev<\/a> and Joe Rothwell<\/a> shared many of the minutes at the base of midfield, while Ao Tanaka was the most selected player by Farke for that role. That may well have been Ethan Ampadu were it not for his injury issues alongside those of Pascal Struijk.<\/p>\n

Gruev signed for \u00a34m from Werder Bremen<\/a> and a Bulgarian legend Krasimir Balakov believes Gruev is a Champions League player<\/a> but he is not convincing everyone with his efforts this season.<\/p>\n

That includes EFL expert Ali Maxwell who has admitted he would have preferred more Rothwell action. He spoke to The Square Ball to provide his thoughts. He said: \u201cThere were definitely times towards the end of the season where I wanted to see more of Rothwell.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I remember Leeds games, in particular if you needed to score, I often felt that having Gruev in there with a Tanaka rather than a Rothwell \u2014 I was there thinking, \u2018come on, Daniel, let\u2019s have a bit more thrust and penetration through the middle.\u2019<\/p>\n

MORE LEEDS UNITED STORIES<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear, and there have been players like this throughout history, it\u2019s very clear that Gruev is the kind of player \u2014 and I don\u2019t necessarily see it as much \u2014 that the manager just loves for what he does.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s the calmness, the composure, the control. For me, I\u2019m just the type of guy who\u2019s like, \u2018right, shall we just get Rothwell on? Because he can dribble and that\u2019s a bit more fun?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, Gruev is someone who Farke just loves. But I\u2019m glad to hear you say you\u2019ve appreciated Rothwell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gruev made Farke a Premier League promise<\/a> but it remains to be seen if he will be able to handle Premier League football, despite his Bundesliga experience previously.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Stu Forster\/Getty ImagesThe futures of Joe Rothwell and Ilia Gruev at Leeds United<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what will happen in midfield with Leeds this summer, but Rothwell is believed to have a \u00a37.5 million price tag<\/a>. The 30-year-old is almost certain to be heading to the Championship again on loan or permanently.<\/p>\n

Gruev is a more interesting player, given his control and out of possession work are valuable elements to his game that could come in handy in the top flight. That is not as abundantly clear, while his position in the pecking order is likely to drop further, too.<\/p>\n

Ampadu and Tanaka should share plenty of minutes, but another new signing ought to be brought in to bolster their ranks and potentially make Gruev\u2019s role somewhat redundant.<\/p>\n

He could also be sold for a PSR profit, but Farke seems to value his skill-set as part of a squad. The Bulgarian international is more likely to remain as part of a deep squad for that reason.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeds United had one of the Championship\u2019s deepest squads last season, with numerous options for the majority of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,1385,393,4884,47271,47272,1860,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-102308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-daniel-farke","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-ilia-gruev","13":"tag-joe-rothwell","14":"tag-leeds","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114509347801520408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}