Daniel Farke headache predicted as Leeds United man 'reaps the rewards for hard work'

Leeds United midfielder Ilia Gruev is reaping the rewards for his hard work at Elland Road. That's the belief of former White Ben Parker, who has witnessed the Bulgaria international going the extra mile to force his way into Daniel Farke's Championship plans.

Gruev had to be patient in the months that followed his summer switch from Werder Bremen to Leeds, with game time proving hard to come by. The 23-year-old made just one start in his first three months as a Leeds player, with the large majority of his outings being late cameos off the bench.

However, the centre-midfielder seems to have finally found traction since the festive period, starting five of Leeds' last six Championship games and playing a key role in the club's eight-game unbeaten stretch. Perhaps his most impressive outing came on Tuesday night as he produced a man of the match winning performance to help the Whites secure FA Cup progression at Plymouth Argyle.

Parker, though, isn't surprised to see Gruev starting to make an impact, having seen the way he behaves off the field.

“He’s fantastic," Parker told LS11. "The amount of times I’ve seen him doing extras in the gym on his own, this is a time when he wasn’t playing or getting any minutes. It just goes to show the hard work does pay off. It is frustrating as a player, especially coming into a new club, country, not getting your chance straight away. It just shows if you put the hard work in behind the scenes, doing it off his own back, it is really impressive. He’s getting the benefits now.

“He does the basics very well, and that is so underrated in modern football. Everyone sees a player dribble past players, or score goals and that’s great – but you need players like Gruev in your team, just breaking up play – he loves a tackle but then he'll get the ball and keep it simple. He does everything really well, at high quality. Knows when to slow or speed up the tempo, he’s come on leaps and bounds.

"He’s added a different dynamic into that midfield. It's been great all season but the headache for the manager will be team selection coming up at the weekend because he's brought Connor Roberts, he's come to play right-back but does he keep Archie there? Does Roberts play and Archie go into midfield, but then who moves from midfield? If Struijk is back does Ampadu go in midfield? It's a very good headache.”