Leeds United fell to their fourth defeat of the season last night with a 1-0 loss at Sunderland.
It was a damaging night for Leeds’ automatic promotion hopes with Ipswich Town once again picking up three points, with the gap to them now at 10 points.
Despite a tight turnaround, Daniel Farke opted to make just one change to the side that defeated Blackburn Rovers 2-0 on Saturday, which was an enforced one as Djed Spence replaced Sam Byram.
And unfortunately, this was pretty telling. Farke has gone with the same set of players for almost every game since the international break, which means he just isn’t utilising his squad enough.
Leeds have some of the best squad depth in the division, yet players like Wilfried Gnonto are getting 20 minutes at most to make an impact, which isn’t enough.
Farke needs to utilise his squad more
Leeds are currently in the midst of their busiest period of the season, yet Farke is still opting to stick to pretty much the same XI every game.
The likes of Ilia Gruev and the aforementioned Gnonto should be handed more opportunities. Games like last night, where there is more of a need to be secure on the ball, the latter is perfect.
Even when he came on, he made a huge difference down the right-hand-side in terms of keeping the ball, and had he been given a start things may have been different.
Dan James has been on fire as of late, undoubtedly, but it doesn’t mean he needs to start every single game. Gnonto is a more than capable replacement who does not weaken the team in any way by starting.
Hopefully Farke uses this as a lesson going forward that rotation is important at this time of the season, starting with Saturday against Coventry City.
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