Leeds United suffer fresh injury blow with surgery possible but Farke reveals pre-Leicester boost

Daniel Farke has been without both Junior Firpo and Stuart Dallas since he arrived as manager at Elland Road in the summer, while Djed Spence picked up an injury in training after impressing in a nine-minute cameo debut. Spence’s knee problem did not require surgery but an eight-week recovery period was anticipated when the club announced the injury in mid-September. The Spurs loanee has remained at Thorp Arch to carry out his rehabilitation and is nearing a comeback. Dallas is yet to return to competitive action since an April 2022 collision with Jack Grealish left him with a fractured femur – a horror injury that required numerous surgeries. Firpo sustained a knee problem in pre-season and although he recovered from that and returned to team training, the ex-Barcelona left-back then experienced some discomfort in his hip.

Farke cannot yet count upon Spence for the game against Leicester City but is now counting the days to get the right-back involved once again, while Firpo is back involved full-time with the squad in training.

"Djed is not in team training at the moment, we expect him back in the next seven to 14 days, we expect him back on the other side of the international break,” said Farke.

“Junior Firpo after his long-term injury he's been in training for 10 days. This week is good for him, the first proper training week, before it was just travelling and playing games. It's difficult for players coming back from long-term injuries. He's edging closer and closer, it's definitely good news. He's available if we call him up, he's in the mix. We'll see. It's definitely progress.”

Further good news is the likelihood that a trio of key players who reported slight issues on Saturday against Huddersfield Town have all been able to train today and Farke hopes they will all be available to feature on Friday night. He said: There were a few players with a few concerns, Rodon, Byram, Cree Summerville, I subbed all three of them. We had to take care of them yesterday, they were involved in parts of team training but they were able to train today. If there's no reaction they're all available.”

The bad news is that Joe Gelhardt, who has struggled for game time but remained part of Farke’s first team squad this season, will be out of action for weeks after picking up an injury in training this week. Farke said: “Gelhardt has a hand fracture, yesterday in training, we wait for some further assessment, he'll definitely miss out a couple of weeks. Surgery would rule him out for even longer, he's definitely not a topic for this game.”