Daniel Farke's response to relegation zone question as Leeds United team selection vs Aston Villa explained
The Leeds United boss has explained the reasoning behind his team selection for Sunday’s Premier League meeting with Aston Villa.
Daniel Farke hopes Pascal Struijk can return to his best Leeds United form in a bid to pull Leeds United out of the relegation zone with a result over Aston Villa.
Leeds welcome Villa to Elland Road having dropped into the Premier League relegation zone following results on Saturday. The Whites need at least a point to pull themselves back above West Ham while three points would take them back up to 16th.
Farke made just one change from the side that lost 3-0 at Nottingham Forest before the international break, with Pascal Struijk returning to partner Joe Rodon in place of Jaka Bijol. The Slovenian played 180 minutes for his country and struggled at the City Ground.
One of the major talking points was at right-wing, with Brenden Aaronson keeping his place to make a 100th appearance for Leeds. Calls for the return of Dan James have been growing for weeks and intensified after the Welshman grabbed a goal and an assist while on international duty.
“Pascal is an important player for us,” Farke told Sky Sports ahead of kick-off. “He had a really good start to the season. He had one or two games when he was perhaps not perfect, missed a few training sessions due to illness. But now after the international break, he's had two proper weeks of training and looked sharp, hopefully he can return back to his best performances like at the beginning of the season.”
Leeds will hope to benefit from the return of Willy Gnonto, who is back in a matchday squad for the first time since September. The Italian had been out with a calf injury before undergoing hernia surgery and has a full month of training under his belt after the international break.
Daniel Farke on Leeds United dropping into relegation zone
Lukas Nmecha has also retained his place upfront having scored early on with a brilliant finish at Forest. The 26-year-old’s hold-up play was lacking a little by the River Trent but he’s been backed to score a third goal in three Premier League starts against Villa.
Farke pointed towards never being in the relegation zone during his midweek press conference but results for Nottingham Forest and West Ham on Saturday pulled Leeds into the bottom three. But the German insists points for rivals shouldn’t influence his side going into Villa.
“We are anyway just focused on ourselves and what we can influence,” the Leeds boss added. “Other results are not important for us. We know we need a special points tally by the end of the season, normally one point average per game is a good marker.
“For that we had a good start, the last two games not being at our top level and today we want to return to winning ways.”