BBC pundit Jon Newsome has shared his surprise at Daniel Farke’s decisions during Leeds United’s 1-1 draw at Norwich City.
Leeds will have felt satisfied coming away from Carrow Road with a hard-fought point considering Norwich have not been beaten at home in the league since November 2023.
At the same time, however, it could so easily have been more for Leeds on another night, who were undoubtedly the better side for a good 70 minutes.
After Josh Sargent had put the home side in front from the spot early on, Leeds eventually found their equaliser through Largie Ramazani on the hour mark.
Ramazani and Wilfried Gnonto were both causing Norwich all sorts of problems but were brought off some time before the end, meaning Leeds had to hold firm late on to come away with a point.
- READ MORE: I saw £10.5m Leeds United player prove in Norwich draw exactly why Daniel Farke does not start him
Jon Newsome surprised at Farke in Leeds draw
Leeds have been dealt a tough hand with the scheduling of their fixtures this week, with a trip to Sunderland to prepare for as early as Friday night.
Farke‘s squad is already down to the barebones as it is, and losing Ilia Gruev after 20 minutes in Norfolk did little to ease those concerns.
As such, it is perhaps not surprising Farke opted to utilise his bench heavily, but it did come at a cost. Leeds fans felt his subs completely killed all the momentum they had built up.
Speaking on BBC Radio Leeds, Newsome admitted he was very surprised at the decision to take Ramazani and Gnonto off, who he felt were the two best players on the pitch.
He said: “As I said on commentary I thought the substitutions were a little bit unusual for me because I thought the best two players on the pitch at that time were Ramazani and Gnonto.
“With 15, 20 minutes to go they were sat on the touchline which was a bit of a strange one for me. But listen, the manager will have his own reasons. He gets paid to manage the team and that’s what he does.”
Farke explains why he brought off Largie Ramazani
Ramazani’s withdrawal was a topic in Farke’s post-match press conference and in fairness to the Leeds boss, he did give a fairly understandable justification.
Not only was Sunderland in mind, but Farke says Ramazani’s physical workload is still being managed due to the injuries to both Manor Solomon and Dan James, as well as the fact he almost works too hard.
He said: “It was more or less his third start and once it’s such an intense game he was struggling a bit. In terms of the workload you will find at the moment not many wingers who deliver less than this distance in the whole league.
“I don’t mean this as criticism, we have to work on his physical point. We have wingers who are out, we can’t afford another injury. This was the plan, especially against Norwich, they deliver always the games with the most distance covered and distance intensity in the whole league.
“You need wingers who help to work back. We wanted to use his creativity and momentum to leave him as long as possible on the pitch. I’m happy he came through 70 minutes.”
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