Leeds United star's best-case scenario for Aston Villa after emotion of opponent's horrific injury

The Japan international is in his first season of Premier League football and his second in English football. It's fair to say he was thrown in at the deep end after moving from the second tier of German football to Elland Road, due to serious knee injuries sustained within a matter of days by Daniel Farke's first-choice midfielders. Tanaka was thrust into the starting XI alongside another attack-minded number 8 in Joe Rothwell and the pair had to hold down the fort while Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev spent weeks and months respectively on the sidelines. Yet Tanaka not only kept his head above water, his debut season went swimmingly. It was only in the latter stage of the campaign that the toll of a gruelling fixture list and the emotional rollercoaster that is Leeds United told on him.

Tanaka earned the respect of his peers in the Championship, being given a spot in the division's PFA Team of the Season and a top-six placing for the PFA Players' Player of the Year. The general consensus was that Tanaka being too good for the second tier would make him ideal for the Premier League.

So far, however, the 27-year-old is yet to hit the same heights in the top flight. The battle with Anton Stach for a place alongside Ampadu and Sean Longstaff has gone back and forth without a clear winner emerging. Neither has been able to bring much in the way of consistent excellence to the role and Tanaka himself has admitted he needs to do more. But his 323 minutes of Premier League football was always going to be enough to guarantee a call-up for a national team he continued to represent last term while a Championship player.

As far as Farke is concerned, as much as he would like to wrap his players in cotton wool during international breaks, he is on record acknowledging the honour involved in representing your country. So perhaps the best case scenario for each player is that they are called up, play a reasonable number of minutes and return to Thorp Arch with a positive experience and no injury. The worst case scenario is obviously that they come back with some issue or other that impacts their availability for club football and given the magnitude of this weekend's Aston Villa game there will be tension all week until the players have been checked back in with a clean bill of health.

Yet with Tanaka, more than anyone else in the Leeds squad, travel time is another consideration for Farke. The midfielder and his national team were due to take on Bolivia on Tuesday in their national stadium in Tokyo, which is a 14-hour flight from London. Previously this season Farke has spoken of the difficulty in being prepared for a Premier League game due to the lateness with which players report back and the impact on their recovery and readiness to play. When Tanaka returned from the October break having come off the bench late on against Brazil, he was not picked to start in the game against Burnley four days later.

But circumstances have lined up differently for Farke and Tanaka this time round. In last Friday's friendly against Ghana Tanaka played 68 minutes and helped his side to a 2-0 win. Though the result and another cap for his country were exactly what Tanaka wanted, the horrific and unfortunate injury to Ghana’s Francis Abu will likely stay with the Leeds man for some time. Abu was left with a double fracture of his tibia and fibula when attempting to block a shot from Tanaka, with the Toulouse player's foot facing in an unnatural direction. Tanaka was one of a number of players who looked overcome with emotion as Abu received treatment.

This week Tanaka was then left on the bench for the entirety of Tuesday's game against Bolivia. And with Leeds not playing until Sunday, travel time should not be too much of a hindrance for Tanaka and his chances of slotting back in against Aston Villa. What's more, it's a home game at Elland Road, so Saturday will not involve travel or an overnight stay in another hotel bed.

So the only thing standing between Tanaka and a fifth Premier League start of the campaign will be Stach, who of course has had two weeks off from fixtures, plenty of rest and a chance to work under Farke with the small group of players left at Thorp Arch this week prior to the internationals' return. But if there is a fight to be had in the final days of training prior to Sunday, Tanaka will at least be relatively fresh for it, which is good news for a team and a manager in need of a hero.