Farke says ‘no guarantees’ as Leeds face Championship finale

DANIEL Farke is unable to give any guarantees to Leeds United's supporters about what they will see on Saturday, but the manager has promised plenty of soul-searching on his part before then.

Quite what Leeds will be facing at home to Southampton will be spelt out tonight, when Ipswich Town are at Coventry City.

A point against the FA Cup semifinalists will take the Tractor Boys into the final weekend of the season in the second automatic promotion place, knowing a win at home to already-relegated Huddersfield Town will see them follow Leicester City into the Premier League.

Win in the Midlands, and a draw will suffice against the Terriers.

Lose, and Leeds will simply have to match Ipswich's weekend result to go up.

But confidence was shaken by a desperately poor performance in their last match, a 4-0 defeat at Queens Park Rangers. It was a display Leeds fans arguably have not seen under Farke and will not want to again, least of all on Saturday.

“You can never give guarantees in football,” he said. “I can't guarantee we'll finish with 93 points and hammer Southampton 5-0 because Southampton are a really good side.

“What I can assure people is we will talk about it and be self-critical.”

Farke has had his fair share of criticism from angst-ridden Leeds fans since the Loftus Road defeat. His failure to make changes until the 63rd minute despite admitting his side could not do the basics at all in the first 20 fed into the critique that he is too slow to change course when things are not going to plan.

He also questioned whether he should have introduced more experience in the absence of Patrick Bamford, with a bruised knee.

“Especially sometimes in the crunch periods of the season it's beneficial to have a bit of experience on the pitch and many players who have perhaps delivered in similar situations,” he argued.

“We had quite a bit of experience on the bench. Perhaps it was possible to bring Liam Cooper on.”

If Leeds don’t garner more points from their final game than Ipswich do in their last two, they will go into a play-off semi-final, with the first leg away to the team finishing sixth. That will be Norwich City, West Bromwich Albion or Hull City.