EXCLUSIVE: Key Daniel Farke moment imminent amid Leeds United future uncertainty
Leeds United dropped into the relegation zone over the weekend with pressure growing on Daniel Farke.
Daniel Farke could be set for a ‘key moment’ in his Leeds United career after falling into the Premier League relegation zone, believes former defender Danny Mills.
Leeds dropped into the bottom three before kicking a ball over the weekend, with a win for Nottingham Forest at Liverpool and West Ham’s point at Bournemouth lifting both to safety. The Whites needed a point or three to climb back above the dotted line but threw away an early lead to lose 2-1 at home to Aston Villa on Sunday.
That defeat also saw Leeds fall below their target of a point-per-game average amid mounting pressure on Farke, who has overseen five losses in six games. The German insisted on Sunday he is not concerned over his job security but with Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool on the horizon, things won’t get any easier for the under-fire boss.
“I think when you go 1-0 up and you're playing that well, you've really got to make sure you see the game out, especially when you're scrapping for points and scrapping for everything,” Mills told the YEP, reflecting on Sunday’s defeat. “It's difficult.
“The problem is now that you come off the international break and you're in the bottom three, and it starts to get hard now once you get sucked into that bottom three. It's a tough run of fixtures coming up as well. It could be a key moment for Daniel Farke.”
Few will expect Leeds to climb out of the bottom three any time soon, given they play two of the current top three and last season’s Champions over the next fortnight. There will still be 23 games to play after that difficult period, however, allowing plenty of time for anyone to pick up the necessary points.
Danny Mills on Leeds United relegation chances
Farke said on Sunday he wants six more wins and a handful of draws between now and May and while that might have been enough in previous years, this season is looking more competitive than most at the bottom. And Mills believes that alongside focusing on points tallies, Leeds need to start asking who they can realistically overtake to climb out of the bottom three.
“You look at teams that you'd expect to be down there,” Mills added, speaking courtesy of betting site BetWright. “You need to finish above three teams. So you think ‘can we finish above Wolves? Yes, we can manage that. Burnley, yeah, we can do that. Not a problem. We can finish above those.’
“Then you're looking at West Ham, they've got some good players and if Nuno gets that right, you can see them getting out of it. Forest, under Dyche, they’ve got some very good, experienced players. Could they get dragged in? Maybe, there's always one team that has a bit of a crisis and comes in unexpectedly.
“Above that? Newcastle, no, they're not going to be down there. Everton, no. Brentford you would have expected to be further down the table but they've got 16 points. They're almost halfway to safety. So it's going to be tough, because that's the way I start looking at it. It's not just about the number of points you need to get, it's who you've got to overtake and who's going to drop into that bottom three if you do manage to get yourself out of it.
“It was always going to be tight. Leeds would have taken 17th at the start of the season, and would still do that now. You've just got to think, are you going to win enough games and score enough goals to get yourself out of this problem? I think it's going to touch and go.”