Daniel Farke has revealed Glen Kamara did not feature for Leeds United last night in order to hand him a rest.
Farke was speaking in his post-match press conference following Leeds’ 1-0 defeat at Stoke City, in which Kamara was, perhaps surprisingly, an unused substitute.
The Leeds boss opted to rotate his side for last night’s match at the bet365 Stadium, with Kamara among three changes from the XI that defeated Norwich City 3-2. Crysencio Summerville and Dan James also dropped to the bench.
After a slow start to his Leeds career, Kamara has started to find his groove in recent weeks with his quality in possession clear for all to see.
Fellow summer signing Ilia Gruev was the man to replace him in the middle, with the Bulgarian international making his full Leeds debut having just made brief cameo appearances before last night.
Farke shares why Kamara did not play
Gruev couldn’t really get into the game for Leeds, though Farke still opted against bringing Kamara off the bench at any point, suggesting he felt he needed a rest.
He said: “Glen Kamara, the same. So he was involved in each and every minute for the Finland team again and so for that we got the feeling we needed to change today.”
There won’t have been many supporters who were too disappointed by this change before the game, as there was no doubt Gruev was deserving of an opportunity.
However, it was apparent fairly quickly that Gruev just couldn’t impose himself, and so a change either at half-time, or just after, would’ve made sense.
At one point during the first half Gruev was among the players with the least touches in the game, which for a central midfielder can’t be happening. There was no link between the front four and rest of the team, which meant Leeds could not play out.
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