Early Leeds United injury news with comeback and illness doubt before Coventry City

Patrick Bamford missed the weekend win over Blackburn Rovers and appeared at the Stadium of Light wearing a face mask as Leeds sought to minimise the spread of illness in the camp. The striker was fit enough to return to action from the bench as a second half substitute but was unable to find a leveller in a game that ended up 1-0 to Sunderland.

Junior Firpo, Sam Byram and Jamie Shackleton - all of whom could have played left-back against the Black Cats - missed the midweek game and Farke is not expecting any of them back for Saturday's Elland Road clash with Coventry. He said: "Yes we will see. Normally we have good fitness levels. We will assess them and see who is ready to go. I don't think any injured players will come back for the weekend. It's also doubtful in terms of illness. We had several in our group struggling with this cold."

Byram [hamstring] is not expected back in action until the new year, although Firpo [hamstring] could return to team training before then and the full extent of Shackleton’s glute problem has not yet been confirmed by Farke. One player who did finally make his first start for the club at Sunderland was right-back Djed Spence, who filled in on the opposite side of Farke's back four. The manager was relieved to see the Spurs loanee come through the contest, or at least 82 minutes of it.

"I was pleased he was able to go for such a long time, especially because he hadn't played that long at left-back," said Farke. "He dealt really well with it. Obviously sometimes positioning could have been better. Even for him it was difficult to use his pace and physicality. Overall I would say a solid full debut and good that he has minutes in his tank."

Leeds' unbeaten streak stood at seven games going into the defeat by managerless Sunderland and Farke will want to return to winning ways when he leads his men into a home meeting with the 15th-placed Sky Blues.