Daniel Farke had two-fold reasoning behind his decision to drop Joe Rothwell from his Leeds United midfield at Burnley.

The on-loan Bournemouth man has started 19 times in the Championship for Farke this season, despite starting the campaign behind Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev in the midfield pecking order. Knee injuries sustained by Ampadu and Gruev in the space of a few days opened the door for Rothwell and Ao Tanaka to form a solid partnership during the more defensive-minded pair's absence.

Rothwell started 15 consecutive games before sitting out against Derby County and then started the next four but he made way for Gruev at Turf Moor on Monday night. Farke said after the game that what he saw of Rothwell in the latter stages of the win over Norwich City, a game in which the midfielder played 89 minutes, and Burnley's 'special' approach led him to believe that Bulgarian international Gruev would be a better fit alongside Tanaka. The result was a game that failed to offer much in the way of entertainment but ended 0-0, kept Leeds’ unbeaten run going and saw Burnley restricted to precisely zero shots on target.

"We had a busy period and Joe was probably involved the most of my midfield players," said Farke. "He looked a little tired in the last game in the last minutes and Burnley has a special approach - they work with a dropping striker, their midfielders are dangerous with running in behind, Brownhill already on nine goals. We needed legs and physicality to control these runs and got the feeling Gruev would be quite important. I'm pretty happy with how he handled it. Together with Ao Tanaka he was really important for our defensive behaviour."

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Since the signing of free agent Josuha Guilavogui and the return of both Ampadu and Gruev from injury, Farke has five fit midfielders to choose from, but a problem elsewhere has made the picture less complicated. Pascal Struijk's hamstring injury necessitated the return to centre-back of Ampadu, who deputised for the Dutchman at the heart of the defence for the second half of last season.

Struijk will be back in training over the next week though according to Farke. He said: "I hope we can involve him at some point this week in training. I hope he'll be back in training and then we'll see a bit closer to the [Cardiff] game at what point he'll be available for selection. It'll depend on how the next days develop."