‘He is available’… Daniel Farke says £13m Leeds United player should be fit to start this weekend

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Leeds United’s squad will certainly be pushed to its very limit over the next week or so.

Wednesday night’s 3-2 defeat at Chelsea in the FA Cup was the first of four matches in nine days for Leeds, a schedule which is actually busier than the one they faced over the festive period.

It is fair to say that Daniel Farke has not been afraid to express his frustration at the calendar recently and unfortunately, some players are going to be needed to play 90 minutes across all those games.

Junior Firpo was one of those who played the full 90 at Stamford Bridge and speaking in his pre-match press conference, Farke admitted that he would rather the 27-year-old had not have played.

Firpo has had to overcome some real injury problems to get to this stage of the season, and despite the concern regarding his current workload, Farke says he should be fit for another start at Huddersfield Town.

Farke confirms Firpo fit to start

He said: “Junior is alright, he also played yesterday 90 minutes and I would have preferred to have been a bit more careful and start Jamie, Sam was not there for long periods, I would have brought Sam in for extra time but not before. But Junior had to go.

“He had some good passes going forward and I think for his confidence in the end it was good, it was another step forward again. He has played against one of the really good sides in this country, so we will see how he recovers, I think he is available for Saturday.”

Firpo is currently in the best run of form and availability he has ever been at Leeds since arriving from Barcelona in 2021 for £13 million, and so there is no doubt he will want to keep playing.

However, at the same time, Leeds will not want to lose Firpo for any prolonged period during the run-in, particularly given how unreliable Sam Byram’s fitness has been in the last two or three months.

Byram is now back fit and in contention to play at Huddersfield, but you can never be sure just how far away another injury is, and so it is vital that Firpo is able to keep himself fit.