Leeds United luxury presented to Daniel Farke ahead of Bournemouth test with injury return possible
The Leeds United boss could have a positive selection dilemma on his hands ahead of Saturday's Premier League fixture.
Leeds United boss Daniel Farke made it clear earlier this season that Lucas Perri was brought to the club to be a number one but the head coach now has the luxury of a decision to make.
The Brazilian was one of the summer signings who brought 'big five league' experience to Elland Road, thanks to his time in France where he played 67 times for Lyon before a €16m move to Leeds. Standing at 6ft 4ins Perri also brings size and physicality to the role, but having arrived with an injury and had to build up his fitness he subsequently picked up a quad problem and sat out the games at Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
With Illan Meslier dropping out of the first-choice picture late last season, it was to Karl Darlow that Farke turned when Perri got injured. The Welsh international was desperately unlucky not to claim a clean sheet in his first Premier League appearance for four years. He made a number of smart stops and steady catches and was only beaten by Gabriel Gudmundsson's freak headed own goal deep in stoppage time.
At Molineux, Darlow conceded again but he played an impressive part in the 3-1 win. A second half that saw Wolves pile on the pressure asked questions of the 34-year-old and he came up with all the answers. His most eye-catching save was from a close-range header that forced him to fly through the air and tip it over the bar, only to see an offside flag go up and render it largely meaningless.
The pressure Fulham exerted in the late stages and the busy nature of Darlow's second half in the Wolves game has left him top of the Premier League table for saves per 90 with four, admittedly from a tiny sample size of just two games. He has an 80 per cent save percentage. There is also a metric called 'Post-Shot Expected Goals' which is Expected Goals based on the likelihood of a goalkeeper saving a shot. In essence, judging shots on how saveable they are and how likely they are to hit the net. Darlow's PSxG from the shots he has faced is 2.2. Take away goals conceded and you get a sense of a goalkeeper's performance relative to saves they can be reasonably expected to make. A positive number suggests better luck or an above average shot-stopping performance. Darlow has posted +1.2. Own goals do not count, but even if they did he would still be in the positive column with 0.2. For context, Lucas Perri has a PSxG of 3 and has let in 5 goals - all of which of course were scored by Arsenal.
None of this is to say, at this stage, that Darlow should now supplant Perri in the way he did Meslier in the Championship. Leeds spent all of that money on Perri for a reason and believe the bigger, younger man is ideal for the Premier League. Last season it took a long time and a fair few mistakes before Farke decided to make a change between the sticks and given that he was forced into taking Perri out of the line-up by injury it would be out of character in the extreme for the manager to name a new number one at this early stage of the season. But how things went against Fulham and Wolves have given Farke no reason to rush Perri back from injury. Darlow has proven a more-than capable understudy.
A rival club's Premier League goalkeeping coach declared that to be the case earlier this season in a behind-the-scenes discussion of Leeds' options, even before Perri picked up his injury. That coach backed Darlow to be able to handle the Premier League, having worked with him previously. So it has proven over the course of the last two games. There was no blame to attach to the keeper for either of the goals he conceded and in almost every other situation he was a reassuring presence.
Bournemouth undoubtedly provide a much stiffer attacking test of Leeds' defence and their goalkeeper than Wolves did, and if Perri is fully fit then it would be a little harsh on Darlow to see a change but no real surprise. If, however, Perri needs a little more time then what Darlow has done so far has given his team-mate the chance to recover fully and his manager the luxury of taking his time to reintroduce the summer signing.