Youngsters in Leeds United’s DNA, says Daniel Farke, despite frustrations over Wembley inexperience
Daniel Farke maintains that developing young players is part of Leeds United’s “DNA” but concedes that the team will require more experience in the upcoming campaign.
In Sunday’s Championship play-off final, a youthful team paid a price for a single defensive misstep as Adam Armstrong took advantage of a defensive lapse to score the game’s lone goal.
Armstrong, a former Barnsley loanee, had 398 senior games, which was significantly more than Junior Firpo and Glen Kamara combined. At 27, he was older than all but two Leeds players on the pitch at the time.
Farke frequently brought up his team’s inexperience during the run-in, having already sidelined captain Liam Cooper this season, loaned out deputy Luke Ayling to Middlesbrough (where he has since joined permanently), lost Stuart Dallas to a career-ending injury, and lost Patrick Bamford for the play-offs due to a knee problem.
However, he also emphasised the value of developing young players, like Leeds did with Mateo Joseph, 20, and Archie Grey, 18, last season.
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“When it comes down to a final and grinding out a result pragmatically, experience always helps,” said Farke. “Armstrong has experienced situations similar to that before, and he is calm, collected, and clinical.
“This is the reason Real Madrid are more or less always in the Champions League final.”

Grey, who started 43 of Leeds’ 49 Championship and play-off games and came off the bench in the remaining four, will be difficult to maintain after the team missed out on promotion to the Premier League.
The adolescent was mentioned by Gareth Southgate in March as a potential future England player. Bayern Munich is the most recent team rumoured to be interested in the teenager ahead of a summer in which Leeds must raise money without jeopardising their chances of promotion.
Charlie Crew, a 17-year-old midfielder, received his first senior call-up on Wednesday, the boss of Wales provided Leeds even more motivation ahead of their June friendly against Gibraltar and Slovakia.
And Farke, who led Leeds under-18s to the FA Youth Cup final this month and saw Crew play a pivotal role, thinks the team needs to keep developing its own youngsters.
He remarked, “This is kind of like our DNA.” “We are aware that, when compared to our opponents at the top of the Championship, we are arguably the most inexperienced and youngest team. This was known to us.
It doesn’t change the fact that our goal of arriving in the Promised Land remains unchanged.
“If you go a little deeper and study it, having Patrick Bamford available for a game like that would have absolutely helped, but it was not meant to be.
“I’m not going to place the responsibility on Georgie (Rutter), Archie, Cree (Summerville), or anybody else for their inexperience.
It’s more like we’re disappointed, but we’ll try to look at the good things that came out of it as well as where we can still develop, and getting a little more experience is one of those things.
“Next season, the players who were engaged will have greater experience.