‘Some secrets’ – Daniel Farke reveals Leeds United transfer close calls and latest situation as deadline looms
Leeds United has come “very close” to making a transfer in January, but Daniel Farke says the team is still trying to bolster its roster before the deadline. The agreement fell through owing to injury.
Up until the weekend, Leeds believed they were in a strong position to finalize the transfer of Daiki Hashioka from Sint-Truiden, a Belgian team, due to injury concerns. Then, Hashioka managed to get a transfer to Luton Town, a Premier League team.
Farke acknowledges that Leeds are driven by the need for prospective recruits to be able to have an immediate impact, despite his policy not to discuss specific people who play for other teams.
“Yes if I’m allowed to speak about some secrets there were one or two that were pretty close, then there was an injury and we can’t afford to bring them in when injured,” he said on Wednesday. “I don’t want to speak about names, I want to speak about other clubs and players under contract with class but it was one or two times very close.”
Leeds’ obvious need is in the full-back area and while Farke insists they will continue to try to bring someone in before Thursday’s deadline, only the right kind of player will tempt them to move.
“We had a period during this window when we also had some injury concerns on the centre-back position, thank God this has eased a lot – Charlie [Cresswell] is back available, Liam [Cooper] is back training, some slight progress with Pascal [Struijk],” said Farke. “We felt we could do with one or two additions with the defence. We’re playing a fantastic season so far and it’s difficult to improve our squad. If we want to bring numbers in we have good Under 21s, Under 18s – it has to be the full package, good personality, quality and character and also improves us. In January it’s not easy to find this package. We’ll use the last 24 hours to work on it. If we find it, great. If not we go with what we’ve got, we’ve come so far exactly with this group, I wouldn’t be too concerned.”
Leeds is facing financial challenges as well because there is little leeway in the EFL’s Profitability and Sustainability standards. In that sense, Farke claims it has been difficult to manage the market.
“It’s not about confidence, it’s when we’re really convinced when something is doable,” he said. “We’re also a bit restricted in financial terms, that’s the biggest problem. We have had some targets that could be a good fit but sometimes in January the price is a bit crazy. We still have to pay the price a bit for what happened in the past. We have many loan players still on our books and we have the FFP rules. We’re aware we would like to have one or two additions but we’ll only do something we’re 100 per cent convinced of.”
Farke will be happy to play the remainder of the season with the current Leeds squad if the team is unable to sign anyone before the transfer market ends. He emphasized that they are currently ahead of both any other Leeds team in the second division and Marcelo Bielsa’s 2019–20 Championship title winners in terms of points.
Should Leeds fail to sign anyone before the window closes,
Farke will be content to go into the rest of the season with the squad as it is. He highlighted that they are tracking ahead of the points total accrued at this point by
Marcelo Bielsa‘s 2019/20 Championship title winners and any other second tier Leeds side.
“We play a fantastic season so far, at the moment we’re playing the best season in the history of this club in the Championship,”he remarked. “I believe we are two points better than the storied 2019–20 squad. We won every league game we played in January. Getting players in who could help us progress is so, so hard. If we just go with these guys, I wouldn’t be worried at all. Every player has a task, and there is a great sense of solidarity, togetherness, and spirit among us. At times, collective spirit, solidarity, and togetherness outweigh individual attributes. We won’t send a player who destroys the atmosphere by being overly eager to participate. We’re trying everything, but I can’t guarantee someone can enter.
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