Leeds United boss extends sympathy to stricken loanee and puts a date on addressing player's future
Leeds United youngster Mateo Joseph suffered a serious knee injury out on loan at Mallorca last month.
Leeds United boss Daniel Farke says he will address the future of currently injured loanee Mateo Joseph once the Whites' Premier League job is done.
Joseph's season was ended prematurely by an ACL injury that is expected to keep the youngster out of action for several months at least. The young striker has spent the campaign on loan with La Liga side Mallorca, having made it clear he did not want to be involved with Leeds' pre-season tours and asked for a move back to Spain. Joseph started 19 league games and came off the bench a further 10 times for Mallorca, scoring two goals and adding four assists - one of which set up the winner in a famous victory over Real Madrid in the final game before his injury.
Farke spoke openly about his disagreement with Joseph's decision not to join the training camp in Germany last summer but when asked about the 22-year-old this week the Leeds boss extended his sympathy but did not want to discuss anything to do with the future.
"At the moment my full focus is just on the players here and our task, I'm not willing to speak on anything in the future, loan players, potential signings, recruitment or whatever," said Farke. "I will speak about this in detail once both competitions [the FA Cup and Premier League] are over and we've achieved what we want to achieve. In this case, fingers are crossed and best of luck of course to Mateo because when there's such a serious injury all our hopes and support are with the player. The mother club has a view on it but my focus is just on the players. For him it's most important he has a proper rehab, his current club is also involved and there's a good relationship but this is more or less all I want to say on it."
Joseph's current team-mates dedicated their win over Rayo Vallecano to him and he received support on social media from ex-Leeds colleagues.
"Today I had to stop," Joseph said in a social media message. "You always see these things from the outside, until one day it's your turn to live them. And there it all changes. It's not just not being able to play. It's stopping the pace, the routine that defines you every day. Now it's time to learn how to compete differently. Be patient, trust the process and accept that there are good days and others that won't be so much."