Ilia Gruev details 'devastating' Leeds United post-playoff debrief as Championship promotion goal back in focus

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Leeds United suffered Wembley heartbreak at the hands of Southampton in May.

Ilia Gruev and his Leeds United teammates endured a tough but necessary post-match debrief the day after May’s play-off final defeat to Southampton, with the midfielder now raring to right the wrongs of last season’s failed promotion attempt.

Leeds fell at the final hurdle of last season’s Championship promotion race, with a bland play-off final performance allowing Southampton to join Leicester City and Ipswich Town in the Premier League. Daniel Farke’s side were top going into the March international break but slipped up when it mattered most, winning just two of their final eight games.

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An electric 4-0 play-off semi-final win over Norwich City renewed hope but, as has so often been the case with Leeds, Wembley provided the scene for heartbreak and consigned Farke’s men to another year of Championship football. Gruev and his teammates were given time to reflect before returning to Thorp Arch earlier this month and with pre-season now well underway, the Bulgarian is desperate to achieve success.

“The first two weeks, it hurt after the final,” Gruev told The Athletic. “You don’t want to think much about football so you try to do something else. But then when it’s week three or four, you start to work hard and you want to come back to see your team-mates, play football, and you want to start again. I want to do something, show myself and achieve something with this team.

“We met the day after the final and it was devastating and hard. But it was important, too. The boss said that it was a bad feeling but that’s football and we have to learn from it. He told us to go home, do what we want but, when we return for pre-season, we’re starting again and we have to forget about it.”

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Gruev is expected to feature in some respect when Leeds face Harrogate Town on Friday evening, with Farke opting to get the senior players involved early as he aims for a faster start than last season. Three wins in the first nine left his side on the back foot last time and paved the way for a season of chasing which eventually fizzled out.

With a year of experience now under their belt, Leeds are among the favourites to go up again and another 90-point tally would likely make that so. But Gruev is under no illusions regarding the task at hand, even if the division looks slightly easier on paper.

“I don’t expect it to be like last year with the four teams who had so many points,” Gruev says. “But I expect tough matches, it’s not going to be easy again. We have our goals and our games and we have to focus on ourselves. We know what the league is, I played my first year in the league last year, so I know the league better now. So do a lot of players in the team and this will help us.

“As a team, we want to improve. It’s details in professional football at this stage. It’s about one, two, three per cent and we want to improve to show we are even better than last year. This is the goal for the season, it’s small things. It’s simple, working hard every day, have one goal, one focus. We know what we have to do.”

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