Sam Byram available for Leeds United v West Brom but Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas, Jamie Shackleton and Illan Meslier ruled out
Daniel Farke has confirmed he will be without four first-team players for Leeds United’s trip to West Brom, but Sam Byram should be “fully available”.
Byram returned to the squad after injury for the Boxing Day defeat to Preston but was an unused substitute following limited training. But Farke has confirmed after more training, he expects the full-back to be fit to feature at The Hawthorns.
However the game will come too soon for Luke Ayling, Jamie Shackleton and Stuart Dallas while goalkeeper Illan Meslier is suspended following his “stupid” red card.
“He just trained with us yesterday (Christmas Day) and I just had him on the teamsheet perhaps for 10, 15 minutes,” Farke said, as quoted by Leeds-Live (28 December).
“He will have two more days of training and he’s definitely then fully available also for this game. That’s good.
“All the others will be a bit difficult because Luke [Ayling] is struggling with some knee problems at the moment, so not sure if he will really make it for Friday. And also for Jamie Shackleton, it’s probably a bit too soon.
“He was not in team training so far. We have to see how it develops over the next two days. So we will see.”
Positive
It may seem like a negative injury update on the face of things with four players unavailable, but in reality this is good news for Leeds.
Ayling, Shackleton and Dallas have been unavailable for a little while now which means the manager won’t have been caught off guard with this news, while the return of Byram to fitness and availability is undoubtedly a positive thing.
Archie Gray has really struggled in recent games at right-back and looks exhausted so being able to afford him that rest would be great, and with Byram returning at left-back it would allow for Djed Spence to move to his preferred right-back role too.
As for Meslier’s absence there was nothing that anyone could do about it after he decided to retaliate and now he has to face the consequences, but Karl Darlow was signed in the summer and will be expected to do a solid job.
We’re strong enough to go there and get the win with this team news, so now the squad must perform better than they did against Preston.
In other Leeds news, Sky Sports pundit reveals ill-feeling towards Whites with ‘I’m Bitter’ admission.