Sunderland v Leeds United: Daniel Farke press conference every word on January need, injuries, top two and Mateo Joseph praise
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Third-placed Leeds continued their excellent recent form with Saturday’s 2-0 win at Blackburn Rovers via goals from Dan James and Crysencio Summerville. The second of quickfire consecutive away games will now present itself on Tuesday evening against sixth-placed Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.
The Black Cats sacked manager Tony Mowbray after the previous weekend’s 1-1 draw at Millwall left the club in ninth place but Sunderland bounced back with a 2-1 triumph at home to Saturday’s visitors West Brom which put the team back in the play-offs places. Mike Dodds is currently in caretaker charge as the club’s search for a new boss continues. Farke held his pre-match press conference at 2pm at Thorp Arch and here is every word from United’s boss.
Sunderland v Leeds United: Daniel Farke press conference every word
You were very clear on Saturday that key players won't be leaving in January but there's quite a few players who aren't playing too much at the moment, are you as firm on them staying as well?
"Yes."
Can you expand on that? If a player says I am not playing, I need to go out and play for the sake of my own career - what would you say to them?
"No because you can't be successful in the league with just 11 players who are in the starting lineups. You need the whole group and I also don't differ between players who are in the starting lineup or sometimes on the bench. Quite often you have different periods in the season. There are players who are involved in the first ten games in the starting lineup and at the moment sometimes they are just on the bench or sometimes they just don't make it to the game day squad. The momentum changes that quickly and obviously during this moment when you are playing everything is okay and then when sometimes you are just on the bench and not in the gameday squad then you are not that happy and want to play again. That's quite normal. But if we allow each and every player to leave then more or less you have to go with XI players and, no, all the players, we are fully convinced will stay with us, at least we want them to stay with us. That's definitely a fact. I don't see why a player who is important for us, who I rate as important for us and who we rate to be important, why we should let him go and become weaker in January. No, we want to be successful by the end of the season and instead of getting weaker we want to get even better. For that, I don't see any player who is valuable and important for us to leave in January. Yes, if you are perhaps position no 26 in our squad anyhow then we can speak about if it is a young player if it makes sense to loan him out to give him some game time for his development because it is beneficial for the mid and the long term. But there are not 11 key players for me, there are definitely 17-18-19 players who each have the chance to be in each and every game in the starting line up, I don't see that any key player should leave. If we let one of these key players leave then something really extraordinary has to happen but I don't see this in January if I am honest."
Have the injuries for Firpo and Byram made you think about January and the left back situation?
"I wouldn't label just because they are out right now with injuries. I had it in my mind anyway because we know also about the injury history of Junior Firpo who has been more then unlucky during his time here although he is such a physical player if he is fit and available. We know what Sam Byram had to deal with throughout his career and I had this in my head anyway, so I wouldn't say that they're both right now in the middle of December injured that is is more urgent because I hope also that Junior will be able to return in the upcoming days also back into training. He won't be available for this week but then hopefully at some point even around Christmas he will be back available and also with Sam I expect him then to be at least back available at least for the first game in the league again in January. So not just because of these injuries but because of their history in terms of injuries I think we have to keep it a bit in our head yes."