'You never know' - Daniel Farke's Leeds United team news for Middlesbrough visit with selection plan but vow

Leeds United boss Daniel Farke has provided his Whites team news for Wednesday night’s hosting of Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup first round.

Farke revealed the “rare” and “surprising” news of having every player available for Saturday’s Championship opener against visiting Portsmouth aside from youngster Harry Gray who is recovering from a back issue.

Leeds had been managing striker Patrick Bamford’s load this summer as the Whites no 9 worked his way back from a knee injury and the forward was brought on as a 79th-minute substitute in the weekend’s 3-3 draw against Pompey.

New summer signing Jayden Bogle recovered from a dead leg suffered in the final pre-season friendly against Valencia to make his full Whites debut whilst Pascal Struijk bagged his first competitive outing for eight months.

Struijk had been out since Boxing Day’s defeat at Preston North End, after which a groin injury needed surgery and ultimately ended his season. With Daniel James also recovering from a recent adductor strain, Farke had a complete clean bill of health for the weekend’s opening assignment of the new season.

That, says Farke, is now still the case for Wednesday’s cup visit of Boro.

“Good news," said Farke. "Back to back that all players are fit and available. Quite rarely you have it as manager so a good scenario and good situation.

"Obviously we will also go highly motivated into this game because we have made it clear also several times that  I am a big believer in cup competitions and we want to go through into the next round.

"We know it's not realistic that we will win the Carabao Cup but you never know so you also want to achieve sometimes something unrealistic and for that we want to come as far as possible and the first step is always to win the first round.

"We know also that we face a pretty, pretty good side, a side who won their first league game. Middlesbrough, for me, are also one of the top teams in our league and it's definitely also a spotlight game.

"It will be an interesting clash, a home game at Elland Road, we want to go into the next round and I will pick a line-up that will be capable to do this and has good chances to win the game.

"We will also make sure that we won't risk a player. We know that especially during the first week there's lots of load and we will perhaps rotate a little bit more than we normally would.

“I think sometimes to rotate on two or three positions is quite normal when we have such a busy schedule and to rotate more could sometimes stop the rhythm a bit so for that I rather don't rotate that much.

“But I think for this game it definitely makes sense, especially also because we are in the beginning of the season and we have several good options.

"We also have to keep a bit in mind that it's a quick turnaround for this game but also then for the game on Saturday and for that you can expect some changes in comparison to our last starting line up."