Leeds United screw turned on players returning from injury as break’s second week starts

Daniel Farke fleshed out his approach to giving every Leeds United player what they need through this international break ahead of it starting

One size will not fit all at Leeds United’s training ground as Daniel Farke begins to turn the screw with Norwich City less than one week away. Eight days have passed since the win over Bristol City and anyone who did not go away on international duty will have been back in training for a few days now after an extended break at the start of the week.

Farke is still waiting for the first of his international travellers to return. The Welsh trio of Ethan Ampadu, Joe Rodon and Daniel James play their final match tonight and could be back at Thorp Arch as soon as tomorrow.

In the meantime, the manager has been working with those not called up and managing their respective workloads on a very individual basis. Sam Byram, for example, has a wretched injury record and went into the break on the back of three matches in seven days.

Patrick Bamford, Ian Poveda and Joe Gelhardt, by contrast, have barely played at all in recent weeks and will have faced far more testing returns to work this week. There is no one programme for everyone, Farke said before the break began.

“It depends,” he said. “So you can’t judge it in general. We spoke about Sam Byram. So, for him, it’s quite important we calm the load a little bit down also during this period.

“Then there are players who are just coming back from injury, for example, or didn’t have that much game time. They have to work a bit more. There’s so much pressure with so many games.

“There’s not one league in the world with so many games. It’s important also, especially at the beginning of the first week, to calm the load and the pressure a bit down and give them one or two days more off than normal and also let them work quite individually.

“So, some players bit more recovery sessions, some players a bit more workload and then from the end of the first week, then it’s also good we can work a bit more on details and can concentrate on the players who are available.

“The second week then leads already into the next game. You always have to listen to the workload, objective data, but also listen sometimes to your gut feeling to experience how to handle the situations.

“I would say we handle the load quite individualised in order to make everything right, to have good solutions so when they are all back available, they’re all fresh and ready to go into the next busy part.”