Leeds United boss Daniel Farke on Crysencio Summerville, replacing winger and 'limited' resources

Summerville's move to West Ham United, for a fee believed to be in excess of £25m, is all-but complete pending an announcement from both clubs and Farke admits he was anticipating such a scenario.

"Like always we just speak about business once it's done but it's more or less an open secret," he said. "I also expect in the next 24 hours perhaps even sooner there will be some development and it looks pretty likely he'll leave us. We'll just speak about this when it's confirmed. It's not like we're not prepared for such a scenario, because especially in the last days and last weeks it looked like this could happen."

Farke says replacing a player who scored 19 Championship goals and added nine assists to be crowned the division's Player of the Year, will be a difficult task for Leeds. But the manager wants the responsibility for mitigating Summerville's departure to be shared by the squad and not just the club's recruitment chiefs.

"Obviously he was not just named but also in general I would say the best player in this league last season, with many goals and assists, it will never be easy to replace him, especially one on one. We have to be aware to bring a player in, in his position definitely, but as a team and a group we have to make sure we share his goals and assists. To bring a new player in who will be the new best player in this league will be pretty difficult, you can't have so much money as you need to spend in order to bring in a new Summerville. I've spoken about how much I like and value him and of course we'll miss him but a club never relies on just one person, not on player, one coaching staff member or even the manager, the club and the team is always bigger. We work to find good solutions to compensate his loss and try to be in other areas perhaps even a bit stronger. This is what we will do once this business happens but I expect this to happen."

When pressed on whether Leeds would now work to bring in a winger specifically, along with their other transfer targets which include a full-back and a central midfielder, Farke admitted he would like another attacker. But he says the club's financial situation with regards to Profitability and Sustainability means the budget is not perhaps what people would expect after summer sales totalling a sum exceeding £75m. Leeds are also in a situation where players of Summerville’s value and profile would be on the radar of Premier League clubs, with resources and salary offerings that a Championship outfit cannot match.

"Our situation is also quite clear, obviously after selling a winger, an offensive player like Cree everyone knows we'd like to add a player in a similar position, there's no doubt," he said. "It's not like right now we receive a full player like Archie Gray or Cree Summerville also lots of money and right now we can spend it. At the moment we still have to pay for a few sins in the past and make sure we're in line with all the financial rules and this is also the reason why sometimes a club has to take a decision also to sell a player.

"Obviously when you ask me as a manager you always want to keep your best players and even add a few more top players but we still have the situation that we've done something not in the perfect way in former years and right now have to pay the price. In the last season we were pretty disciplined and careful with what we spent. We have to be careful and it's an open secret, it's not like we take all the money from a transfer like Cree and can spend it right now. We have pretty limited resources. Of course we can do something but it's not like we can spend the same sum of money for a Cree Summerville. So for that everyone knows it's not possible to work with unlimited resources, we still have to stay pretty disciplined and it won't be easy to find a player who improves our squad but is also affordable. But this club never does it in the easy way, it would be boring, everyone can do easy, we are special, we have to go our own way and find some good solutions."