Daniel Farke on Leeds United’s difficult backdrop and issues update on late injury at Cardiff City

The Whites enjoyed one of the most comfortable afternoons of the season against an insipid home side, who rarely troubled Illan Meslier in the visitors’ goal. A close-range effort on 13 minutes from Patrick Bamford would have been enough for Leeds, but they added emphasis to the scoreline with a second from Daniel James and Georginio Rutter’s late third. In between each of the goals there were chances to heap further humiliation on a Bluebirds team who were booed off at the interval, but the woodwork denied both James and Summerville, the latter stroking a second half penalty against the foot of Jak Alnwick’s post.

Their level of control left Farke purring. “For me it was our most mature performance of the whole season,” he said. “We had some electrifying performances in home games but in an away game, Cardif is always a difficult place to go, before the game they were ninth and eyeing the top six, to be so in control, third clean sheet in a row by the way, overall I'm pretty happy. We kept them totally quiet in their possession and dominated the ball in exactly the right manner. Could and should have probably scored a few more but the win was never in doubt and I was particularly pleased with the control.”

The departures of Djed Spence and Luke Ayling, along with injuries to Pascal Struijk and Liam Cooper, have put a little more on the plate of Farke’s fit and available defensive players but he’s delighted with how they’ve coped. He said: “Many, many good individual performances. I have to give big, big compliments to my lads. I would never speak about this after a bad result but the situation right now with some outgoings and injuries, there's not unbelievable competition on the training ground. We have trained all week with 16 or 17, there was not even a choice, everyone who was fit and available was travelling with us. A few had to play in a [different] position - Ethan has played many times at centre-back but not for us in recent months and what he has shown is outstanding. I like the mentality. I criticised them last away games, after setbacks, penalties denied, red cards and we found it difficult to grind out a result. Today we missed a few chances, didn't get a penalty, missed a penalty but we were on it and showed resilience and a mature performance.”

Sam Byram made his return from injury just in the nick of time, with Junior Firpo picking up a niggle late on and limping off. Farke believes it was a minor issue for a player who has been growing in confidence at left-back after returning from previous fitness problems. “It was a dead leg, he got hit in the first half and the longer it went on the more problems he had, but not a big problem,” said the manager. “I'm pleased he got more minutes, we see him growing game to game. Our style definitely suits him. You have to be rock solid at defending at full-back, even if you're offensive minded and it's important he grows in relation to this and he's doing it. It was important to control the wide positions, they work with many crosses and set-pieces, so to be rock solid was crucial. It was probably his most balanced performance so far.”