Daniel Farke has hailed a member of his Leeds United squad for strengthening following the departures of Liam Cooper and Stuart Dallas.
The last 12 months have seen the start of a new era at Elland Road, with many long-serving players moving on even before Marcelo Bielsa’s reign.
Cooper, Dallas and Luke Ayling were highly regarded leading figures at Leeds and losing them all in the space of a few months forced others to step up.
Ethan Ampadu, Pascal Struijk and Illan Meslier have been promoted to the regular Leeds management group but are still fairly inexperienced in terms of age.
All of these trios are aged 25 or under and will no doubt turn to some of the older members of the dressing room for advice.
Farke praises Junior Firp for leading Leeds
Of those playing regularly, Sam Byram, Junior Firpo and Patrick Bamford are the most experienced faces in Farke’s squad.
All three know the club very well, with Bamford now in his seventh season, Firpo in his fourth and Byram an academy member now in his second season.
At a press conference ahead of Cardiff City, Farke mentioned the emergence of Firp as a manager after further questions about his contract situation.
This time last year, no one could have predicted just how important the ‘amazing’ Firpo would become after a really tough first two seasons at Leeds and several injury lay-offs.
However, Farke says Firpo has now become an important face in the Leeds dressing room and is something likely to be considered in a potential new deal.
He said: “To be honest, I haven’t thought about this scenario until now because the summer has been so difficult with other things. You know how much I appreciate Junior [Firp] and Sam [Byram] and how important they are to us.
“Junior played a really good game against Burnley, after a long journey he has improved his defensive skills and is turning into a leader. Great desire to continue to progress.”
Firpo doubtful for Leeds v Cardiff
Farke has released a number of injury updates ahead of this weekend’s trip to Cardiff, with Firpo among those in doubt.
Firpo, Joe Rodon, Manor Solomon, Joe Rothwell, Max Wober and Patrick Bamford have all been mentioned by the Leeds boss.
He said: “We’ve had a few minor knocks, knocks and issues this week. Rodon has missed two training sessions with a hamstring problem. Junior Firpo has struggled a bit with his MCL and Manor Solomon with a minor back problem.
“Joe Rothwell sprained his ankle, a few concerns but I’m pretty optimistic they’ll all be available. The biggest question mark is Solomon. Wober is back in training today, just a light workout, we’ll wait and see how his body reacts .Patrick Bamford returns to team training from Tuesday.”