Daniel Farke labelled Ethan Ampadu as a fitness doubt heading into Leeds United’s match with Sunderland tonight.
Farke provided an update on the state of his squad in his press conference yesterday and claimed that Ampadu was the only fresh concern after the weekend’s 2-1 defeat at Coventry City.
Saturday was actually the first time Leeds have been beaten in the league across the whole of 2024 but due to the standard of the promotion race, they can ill afford for that to continue.
Tonight’s match against Sunderland is the first of five remaining cup finals for Leeds in the race for top two and a win would put the pressure on Ipswich Town ahead of their match with Watford tomorrow.
With that in mind, Leeds can ill afford to have any of their best players missing over the next few weeks and Ampadu is certainly one who falls under that category.
Ampadu drops hint on whether he is fit for Leeds vs Sunderland tonight
Ampadu is the only player from Farke’s squad to have played every single Championship match for Leeds this season, starting all 41 and coming off in just one.
The 23-year-old was excellent in midfield during the first half of the campaign but has also excelled at centre-back since moving back in the absence of Pascal Struijk.
He has formed a really strong partnership with Joe Rodon and Leeds simply cannot do without him, with their backup options in Struijk’s absence not up to the standard needed.
However, Ampadu may have just dropped a major hint on his availability for this evening’s match at Elland Road on his Instagram story earlier today.
In every match Ampadu is available for, he will always post a pre-match graphic onto his story hours before, which is exactly what he has done today.
This hopefully means that he is in the squad and fit to start tonight, allaying any fears he would be missing. Farke said he had to come through this morning’s session to play, and it would appear as though he has.
What Farke said about Ampadu fitness
Farke will be keen to avoid making too many changes to his back four tonight, particularly after what happened when he did so at Watford recently.
Bringing Sam Byram in certainly seems like a logical decision to make, but had Ampadu not been fit, that would then mean Farke has to change half of his defence from Saturday.
Given it was only illness, it looks as though Ampadu will have recovered in time, but here is exactly what Farke had to say on his fitness yesterday anyway.
He said: “No additions. Question behind Ethan. Illness in the last 48 hours. Not available to us yesterday or today. Tight race. Short session tomorrow which he has to make to play.”