'Pretty confident' - Leeds United boss Farke states position on possible deadline day squad change

The Whites have added eight new faces to the ranks this summer in the shape of Karl Darlow, Djed Spence, Joe Rodon, Sam Byram, Ethan Ampadu, Ilia Gruev, Glen Kamara and Joel Piroe. Both Kamara and Gruev arrived on Thursday and are expected to be the final new faces, unless Sinisterra departs and a replacement arrives.

Sinisterra, like so many others in the squad, had a relegation exit clause in his contract which expired in August. A dispute surrounding that clause and its expiry led to Farke removing Sinisterra from his first team set-up until the Colombian’s situation was clearer and his head was right. Sinisterra returned to the line-up at Ipswich and scored in the 4-3 victory.

But the club has been unable to state with certainty that the winger will stay beyond today’s transfer deadline, which lends itself to suggestions that he does harbour a desire to leave and what’s more, Sinisterra is among those to have taken significant wage cuts post-relegation due to stipulations in their contracts. He trained at Thorp Arch on Friday morning however and when the manager sat down with the media at 1.30pm there was no concrete news on offers for Sinisterra.

Farke’s hope is that the squad remains as it is currently when the deadline comes around at 11pm.

“Yes, pretty, pretty confident,” he said.

"In this business, you can't give a guarantee but I'll tell you what, we have survived the last eight weeks without any problems, so I think when you compare our situation a few weeks ago with this current situation, I think we're looking at a really, really good place and I'm pretty sure that we will also survive the last eight hours.

"In this football business, you can never give a 100 per cent guarantee. I mentioned last press conference there could be a crazy offer from Saudi or something like this. That's a different scenario, but overall I have to give many, many compliments to our owners, to our board, to our people who work unbelievably hard with Gretar [Steinsson], with Nick [Hammond]. Fantastic what they're doing was with limited resources and also I'm pretty, pretty pleased with this window so far. And I'm quite quite confident, without having a 100 per cent guarantee, but I'm quite confident that we will also have a really good last eight hours.”

Leeds are not expected to bring in further additions today unless they’re responding to an exit. Not signing a left-back is one of few grumbles in the fanbase, given the solid nature of the recruitment work this summer, and Farke is content with what he has in that position.

“We will stay awake to the final second of the window but overall as a manager you always cry for more options, more quality,” he said.

"If I could sign Roberto Carlos in his prime I would but sadly he's retired. We have Junior [Firpo], we have Sam [Byram], I hope both will be back at the other end of the international break. Jamie Shackleton has played this role in a fantastic manner at Ipswich and assisted a goal. We have options. Pascal [Struijk] has sometimes played in the full-back position on the left side. Of course if three left full-backs are injured we have a problem but you can't have a squad of 45 players.”