Confirmed: Junior Firpo, Djed Spence and Stuart Dallas ruled out for Leeds United v Stoke City
Leeds United will still be without Djed Spence, Junior Firpo and Stuart Dallas for their Championship clash with Stoke on Wednesday, Daniel Farke has confirmed.
All three players are suffering with long-term injuries and while Spence is yet to return to first-team training, Dallas and Firpo have returned to training with the rest of the squad.
However Farke revealed that they are still a few weeks away from a return to action despite that, and there are no updates on them coming back sooner meaning they won’t play against Stoke on Wednesday night (25 October).
Leo Hjelde has however recovered from his knock during international duty and returns to contention in the left-back position.
Rotation
We all know how Farke feels when it comes to rotating his team and Leeds’ performance at the weekend will no doubt put the idea into his mind that some players need a rest.
Archie Gray struggled at right-back after playing three full 90 minutes during the international break, while Ethan Ampadu has played every minute of every game for the Whites so far on top of his international duty for Wales.
Players like Ilia Gruev, Jaidon Anthony, Patrick Bamford and Luke Ayling are all raring to go and this could be a good chance for the boss to make a few changes to the side the freshen things up and hand out some opportunities.
He will also have Jamie Shackleton and Wilfried Gnonto available again pushing for starts after being left on the bench at the weekend, so there are some big decisions to make.
Most importantly though we need to keep the momentum going from our win at the weekend, and another game on the road means it will be difficult. We have the quality in our squad to do it, but now the manager has to make use of it.
In other Leeds news, Whites star missed training as Farke rages at recent development.