‘Not currently’ – Leeds United boss Daniel Farke holds back on Willy Gnonto Carabao Cup absence

Leeds United were without attacker Willy Gnonto for their Carabao Cup First Round victory over Shrewsbury Town on Wednesday night.

The Italian international was absent from the squad which hosted the League One outfit at Elland Road having played three days prior in the 2-2 draw versus Cardiff City.

Gnonto was not named in a statement released by the club on Tuesday which listed fresh injuries suffered by last weekend’s goalscorers Liam Cooper and Crysencio Summerville.

Speaking after the 2-1 win over Shrewsbury, Leeds boss Daniel Farke said the teen’s absence was not through injury: “Willy was not available today.

"No [not injured], not available.

"Listen, in general you know I'm always open and honest and give you a pretty transparent answer,” Farke added, when pressed on the matter.

"I can't give you the whole picture anyhow, due to I'm not in control of this then I prefer to give you what I can say and then not to create a story or whatever. And what I can say are the facts and the fact is that he was not available.

"There will be the time to make some comments to this but not currently, he was not available.”

Goals from Joe Gelhardt and Pascal Struijk helped Leeds progress past Matt Taylor’s Shropshire-based side. Farke felt his team did not deserve to go in a goal down at the break, but picked fault with the Whites’ opening 45 minute performance.

"I think in the first half we didn’t deserve to be [behind] because it was also a bit unlucky, deflected strike was more or less the only strike and we had a few chances.

"I didn’t like our first half performance that much, I think we moved the ball a bit too slow, we were not really disciplined in our positioning, our structure was not good in order to open them up.

"I checked the statistics again, was a bit [like] the last game: 81 per cent possession, twelve-to-one shots in the second half. They didn’t have a corner, we didn’t allow them to have one chance and I think we should have scored a third goal a bit earlier which would have made our life easier.”

The Whites have been subsequently drawn away to Salford City in the Second Round of the competition. Ties will be played week commencing August 28.