Coventry City boss Mark Robins says that Daniel Farke has done an ‘incredible job’ at Leeds United as the two sides prepare to meet tomorrow afternoon.
Despite failure to secure promotion back to the Premier League, the German remains in charge at Elland Road. This was thanks in part to the stunning second half of the season which saw the Whites embark on a stunning 15-game unbeaten streak from the turn of the year to fire them into automatic promotion contention.
Ironically, it was Coventry who ended that streak in April as Leeds had to make do with a play-off place. They reached the final following a semi-final victory over Norwich City before falling at the final hurdle against Southampton at Wembley Stadium in May.
A second successive summer of disruption followed, with key stars such as Crysencio Summerville, Archie Gray and Georginio Rutter moving on to pastures new. However, the arrivals of the likes of Ao Tanaka, Largie Ramazani and Jayden Bogle softened the blow, whilst Wilfried Gnonto committed his future to the club by signing a new four-year deal in August.
After losing to promotion rivals Burnley earlier this month, there was noise from some quarters that the Leeds hierarchy may be looking to replace Farke. West Bromwich Albion’s Carlos Corberan has been one name touted with the job, although the Spaniard is said to have a £2 million release clause.
The Yorkshire side recovered from the setback against the Clarets with a win over Cardiff City last weekend, a result which sees them sixth in the Championship. They’ll be looking to make it back-to-back victories when Coventry make the trip to Elland Road tomorrow.
The Sky Blues have started the campaign slowly and are currently on a four-game winless streak. Robins knows he has his work cut out if his team are to secure three points this weekend and the 54-year-old was full of praise for his managerial counterpart ahead of the clash:
“They’ve got a lot of good players, even though they’ve sold some for lots of money, they’ve replaced them pretty well,” he said, via the Yorkshire Post.
“They’re managed really well, and Daniel Farke has done an incredible job and was really unlucky last season, as we were the season before not to go up and they will be looking to do that this season.
“The pressure is different at Leeds United compared to what it is at Coventry City, although we want the same end goal, I think the demands are greater for Daniel than they are for me here.
“It is an interesting game and one we’re looking forward to and hopefully we can contest it in a better way than we did last season, even though it was a draw last year, we didn’t really take part in the game from an attacking point of view. We want to try and pick up the three points at a difficult place to go.”
Writer’s View
There is always going to be speculation when it comes to a club the size of Leeds, so it’s no surprise that Daniel Farke’s position has been under scrutiny in recent weeks. However, Robins is correct in his assessment of the job the German has done at Elland Road thus far.
He was exceptionally unlucky to miss out on promotion last season. 90 points would normally almost guarantee a top two finish, but a slow start proved costly, and Leicester and Ipswich took full advantage. The minimum expectation this season is to go one better and failure to do so would surely cost him his job. It’s still early days though and they have started well enough for him to remain in charge for the time being. Expect them to continue this form tomorrow with a routine three points.
Head of Writing
