{"id":367046,"date":"2025-08-23T10:58:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T10:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/367046\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T10:58:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T10:58:14","slug":"leeds-squad-confirmed-for-arsenal-clash-as-dominic-calvert-lewin-decision-made-football-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/367046\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeds squad confirmed for Arsenal clash as Dominic Calvert-Lewin decision made | Football | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leeds United will be seeking to continue their perfect opening to the fresh Premier League campaign when they travel to Arsenal<\/a> this evening. Nothing short of their finest performance will suffice against the championship contenders.<\/p>\n

The loss of skipper Ethan Ampadu through injury has certainly complicated their task as they attempt to overcome the odds and deliver a massive shock. The defensive midfielder suffered damage to his medial cruciate knee ligaments during a challenge with Tim Iroegbunam in Monday’s triumph over Everton.<\/p>\n

This means Ampadu will remain sidelined until following the international break.Leeds<\/p>\n

Ilia Gruev and Ao Tanaka are competing to step into Ampadu’s position in the centre of midfield.<\/p>\n

“Ethan is a big miss,” said Farke, who guided the Whites to the Championship title last term. “There’s no doubt about this. We don’t have to lie and to sugarcoat the situation.<\/p>\n

“But we have players in our squad who interpret the role slightly differently and we will find the solutions.”<\/p>\n

Fresh acquisitions Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Noah Okafor are expected to participate in the Whites’ opening away fixture of the season.<\/p>\n

Regarding Calvert-Lewin’s condition, Farke commented: “Each and every training session with the team is important for him. He had a long summer break, followed by a few weeks of individual training, where his general endurance was at a really good level. However, what he has missed is team training, and for that reason, each session is crucial.<\/p>\n

“He has made a decent impression, already well integrated, and you can see from day to day that he is growing. When we will use him for the first time, we’ll decide spontaneously. From a fitness point of view, he’s in good shape.”<\/p>\n

Okafor participated in AC Milan’s pre-season campaign and “doesn’t need three or four weeks to build up” his match fitness, according to Farke.<\/p>\n

Both Okafor and Calvert-Lewin could feature as substitute options from the bench this weekend.<\/p>\n

Slovenian international Jaka Bijol, a \u00a315m summer signing from Serie A outfit Udinese, might make his bow after completing a one-match ban.<\/p>\n

His suspension transferred from his stint at Udinese last season. It remains to be seen whether Farke maintains trust in Pascal Struijk at centre-half or throws Bijol straight into the action.<\/p>\n

Isaac Schmidt is anticipated to be absent for the second consecutive fixture.<\/p>\n

The full-back has struggled for playing time under Farke and has been strongly linked with a switch to Werder Bremen.<\/p>\n

Leeds squad vs Arsenal<\/a><\/strong>: Perri, Darlow, Cairns, Bogle, Rodon, Struijk, Bijol, Bornauw, Gudmundsson, Byram, Gruev, Longstaff, Tanaka, Stach, James, Aaronson, Harrison, Gnonto, Okafor, Ramazani, Piroe, Nmecha, Calvert-Lewin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeds United will be seeking to continue their perfect opening to the fresh Premier League campaign when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[128503,6167,748,128505,393,128504,4884,1860,2922,24464,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-367046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-arsenal-clash","9":"tag-arsenal-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-dominic-calvert-lewin-fitness","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-ethan-ampadu-injury","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-leeds","16":"tag-leeds-united","17":"tag-leeds-united-fc","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115077729834274973","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367046","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=367046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}