Inside Elland Road: Defensive solidity is vital for Leeds Utd
The winger was not in Leeds United's matchday squad at the City Ground on Sunday.
Leeds United boss Daniel Farke says the decision was taken to not risk Willy Gnonto at Nottingham Forest and give him a further fortnight of training before his comeback from injury.
Gnonto has been missing since the Fulham defeat in September. The Italian international picked up a calf problem and then required a minor operation on his groin. He has been back in team training for a fortnight and Farke said before the trip to the City Ground that he had a chance of being in the squad but when the team sheet emerged he was not on it. Speaking after a 3-1 defeat in which Leeds created just 0.69 in Expected Goals and committed decisive defensive errors, Farke said the preference was to protect Gnonto until after the international break.
"We decided after he was out for such a long time it was an option to take him with us for the bench, but regarding the training week we didn't want to take the risk," said the manager. "We have two more weeks for him in training now. We thought for this game to bring him in from the bench it's not right to take the risk. He'll have a bit of a pre-season with two more weeks, then more or less four weeks of training [before a return]."
In Gnonto's continued absence, Farke started with Brenden Aaronson again on the right wing but ended up replacing the American in the second half with Leeds needing an equalising goal. Dominic Calvert-Lewin dropped to the bench due to a groin issue sustained last weekend with Lukas Nmecha taking the number 9's place up top. Farke's substitutions didn't come until the 74th minute because he felt the way he had set the side up was working prior to Forest's second goal. One of the five players he sent on, Jack Harrison, conceded the penalty from which Forest made it 3-1.
"Overall our set-up was also working in our favour," he said. "The feeling was the longer it's perhaps a draw or we're in the lead, the pressure is on Nottingham. We had a point gap, they're at home against a side just promoted and we felt we'd get even more counter attacks. They were relatively open in the first half and we could explore this a bit more. But if they go in the lead and sit back more and you have to equalise it's clear we go for risks with two strikers on the pitch. There was no chance to bring Dominic Calvert-Lewin on earlier, he was just ready for 30 minutes. We replaced Brenden with Dan James, and took more risks with Jack Harrison. I don't blame him for the penalty situation, it was a bit clumsy but we wanted to take risks with a more offensive-minded player than a more rock solid player [in Gabriel Gudmundsson]. We wanted more crosses for Dominic's head. I was not tempted too much to open our set-up too much until we were behind."
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