Daniel Farke details why Pascal Struijk situation emerged v Preston, shares Leeds United ‘karma’ admission
Pascal Struijk was number three on the list to step up and take the Leeds United penalty against Preston as Crysencio Summerville and Joel Piroe weren’t on the pitch, according to Daniel Farke.
Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post on Thursday (28 December), the Whites manager said it was “annoying” that the 24-year-old centre-back scored from the spot before Liam Millar registered a 89th-minute winner to seal a 2-1 victory for the Lilywhites.
He added that conceding that goal at the end of the game was “karma” for his side not doing enough in the first half of the game at Deepdale.
“We had Cree and Joel Piroe not on the pitch,” said Farke. “Pascal was number three so he took the responsibility in a cool and calm manner.
“This is what is a bit annoying. Because of the second half, we would have deserved to leave with one point and have good momentum on our side to come back and everyone would have praised us.
“I also want to judge this game rightly. We didn’t lose this game because of the 90th minute, a little mistake of Archie.
“I want to put the spotlight more on our offensive game in the first half because we should have done much better. Yes, this is sometimes like karma, it comes back in the 89th minute what you have done in the first half and we didn’t do enough.”
Have to be better
It’s good to see Farke isn’t laying any blame on Archie Gray for the defeat after Millar skipped past him and fired an excellent strike into the top corner to seal the three points for Preston.
He instead decided to focus on how poor his side were going forward in the first half before Illan Meslier’s ill-discipline in the opening minutes of the second half saw the Whites reduced to 10 men.
The German will know his team have to be more consistent on the road if they are to secure promotion back to the Premier League this season following their indifferent form away from home.
It will have been incredibly disappointing for him to see his side go behind again after Struijk’s penalty looked to have rescued what would have been a decent point under the circumstances.
The West Yorkshire club now have to go to fifth-place West Brom on Friday (29 December) and pick up a positive result if they are to keep their automatic promotion hopes alive.
In other Leeds United news, Clive Tyldesley slammed a Whites loanee after what he did.