{"id":500039,"date":"2025-10-14T23:43:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500039\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T23:43:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T23:43:14","slug":"jaka-bijol-now-impossible-for-leeds-united-farke-to-ignore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/500039\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaka Bijol now impossible for Leeds United, Farke to ignore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leeds United<\/a> may have a very solid defensive unit right now, but Daniel Farke is going to be forced into a change soon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leeds\u2019 last two games have only yielded a single point against Bournemouth and Spurs. If performances were given the points they merited, United would have collected four from those two, plus another one at Fulham to take their tally up to 12 instead of eight.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s helped Leeds be competitive across six of their seven Premier League games has been a solid defensive structure<\/a>. Interestingly, they\u2019ve done that without playing their impressive \u00a315million summer signing<\/a> for even a minute.<\/p>\n

Most Read on LeedsAllOver<\/p>\n

Jaka Bijol is yet to set foot onto the pitch for a Premier League game. In another world, he isn\u2019t banned for the opener against Everton and therefore never looks back.<\/p>\n

Up until now, he\u2019s been rightly kept at arm\u2019s length by Joe Rodon and Pascal Struijk. His only involvement since August has been with Slovenia, where his last two outings have provided a strong case for his inclusion going forward.<\/p>\n

Two 0-0 draws don\u2019t exactly strengthen Slovenia\u2019s World Cup qualification hopes. But, for Bijol getting to peak form, it\u2019s certainly helped<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jaka Bijol has impressed while out on international duty with Slovenia. (REUTERS\/Borut Zivulovic)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Leeds manager Farke watched the game, then Bijol will start the Premier League clash this weekend. He played without a mistake, (Breel) Embolo was invisible next to him,\u201d Ekipa<\/a> wrote, giving Bijol a 7.5\/10 rating.<\/p>\n

Jaka Bijol becoming impossible to ignore as Daniel Farke has tough Leeds United decisions to make<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of debate that stemmed from the Spurs defeat around whether that should be it for Struijk starting over Bijol in the Premier League.<\/p>\n

I personally think the argument is a lot more nuanced. It\u2019s not as simple as: \u2018Struijk didn\u2019t block two goals, so he should be dropped\u2019. That\u2019s a discussion that was doing the rounds aplenty on social media.<\/p>\n

Irrespective of your opinion on the Dutchman, though, it\u2019s getting to a point where Bijol has to come into more consideration no matter the performances of those starting.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no bad mark against Struijk or even Rodon if they\u2019re taken out of the starting lineup. It\u2019s more an acknowledgement that Leeds have a centre-back in Bijol that could walk into several Premier League lineups.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s obviously an element of risk for Farke dropping one of his centre-backs for a must-win game at Burnley. That\u2019s especially considering the defence is the least of our worries right now. <\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s very little Bijol can do to convince Farke otherwise beyond being completely dominant against a very good Switzerland side.<\/p>\n

Read more: Joe Rodon is finally adding goals to his arsenal as a Leeds United player\u2026<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeds United may have a very solid defensive unit right now, but Daniel Farke is going to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,1385,25764,393,4884,70462,1860,2922,142361,142362,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-500039","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-elland-road","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-jaka-bijol","14":"tag-leeds","15":"tag-leeds-united","16":"tag-lufc","17":"tag-the-whites","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115375178731924601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500039","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=500039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}