Jamie Carragher's verdict on Leeds United goalkeeper debate with Daniel Farke decision to make vs West Ham
Karl Darlow was one of several players at fault for Burnley's first goal against Leeds United on Saturday.
Jamie Carragher believes Karl Darlow’s quality on the ball helped Leeds United at Burnley - rather than hindered.
Leeds suffered a disappointing 2-0 defeat at Turf Moor on Saturday and Darlow was one of several players at fault for Burnley’s opener inside 18 minutes. The Welsh international’s wayward pass went out for a throw-in which his teammates switched off for, with Lesley Ugochukwu running off Anton Stach to head home Kyle Walker’s cross and Loum Tchaouna making it 2-0 midway through the second half.
With £16million summer signing Lucas Perri on the bench at Turf Moor and now fit enough to start, Darlow’s error came at the worst possible time with his position now under scrutiny ahead of West Ham on Friday. But reflecting on Saturday and the season so far, Carragher instead praised the back-up goalkeeper’s quality on the ball.
The Monday Night Football pundit ran through a number of clips from Saturday in which Darlow played out from the back successfully, with an annotation showing how the Welshman has played a much shorter passing game than Perri since coming in. “Darlow is fantastic on the ball,” he explained. “You can see him here splitting the centre-backs.
“Perri actually started the first three, Darlow comes in, but you can see it’s a complete contrast really in terms of what they’re like as a goalkeeper. He’s really confident on the ball; he was almost like a centre-back before. He’s now breaking the lines there and this is what made Leeds actually, I’d say, play well in the game.”
The MNF studio then ran through the build-up to Burnley’s opener on Saturday, which Carragher believes was an isolated mistake, rather than anything more concerning: “What’s interesting is this season, we haven’t seen much from the newly-promoted teams trying to play out from the back. So it was interesting that this goal came from a poor pass.
“People will obviously be critical in saying these teams shouldn’t be playing out from the back. But we wanted to show the first few clips of Karl Darlow, to actually show he’s more than competent with the ball and that actually is just a poor pass, and he’ll be really disappointed with that.”
Daniel Farke’s Leeds United selection decisions for West Ham
It remains to be seen how Farke will view the goalkeeper position, with the Leeds boss insisting after defeat at Burnley he will not make changes ‘for the sake of it’. Perri is widely expected to reclaim the No.1 spot after returning from a quad injury but Darlow has proven a more-than solid option in recent weeks.
Goalkeeper is one of a handful of positions where Farke will be considering changes going into West Ham on Friday. There have also been calls to switch things up at centre-back, with £15m summer signing Jaka Bijol yet to play a single Premier League minute while Pascal Struijk has not been at his best in recent games.
Similarly, Ao Tanaka’s technical quality might have been well-suited to last weekend’s meeting with Burnley, a game in which Leeds dominated possession but lacked the necessary guile to break their hosts down. The Japan international could be in line for a return to the starting line-up on Friday, with either Sean Longstaff or Stach dropping out.
Whether Farke makes changes out wide will be down to fitness, with no other option but to start Jack Harrison and Brenden Aaronson at Turf Moor. Dan James was fit enough for the bench while Willy Gnonto and Noah Okafor missed out through injury, with hope at least one of the aforementioned trio could start against the Hammers.