A bumpy start could be ahead of Leeds United as they get to grips with the reality of just 33 days for new manager Daniel Farke to prepare for competitive action. Not only does the new boss need to settle into Thorp Arch, get to know his current players and establish tactical plans, but research his coming opponents and add new players.
The German wants to be transparent ahead of the event about what could be in store for United and asks for patience from the fan base. Farke was asked directly this week how difficult it might be with only one month to prepare.
“It's difficult,” he said. “It's also important to be honest and transparent about this. My experience when I came to English football is much less than 50 per cent of all teams are able to bounce back after relegation and it's just a fact.
“Listen, when you have a difficult year like we had last season and, if we're really honest, even the season before was also not the easiest season, you get used to losing football games. If you want to play a good role on Championship level, winning has to become a habit.
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“You have to win game after game and you can't be too high after a win or too down after little setbacks. You have to keep going for 46 games, plus the cup games.
“It is always difficult, especially after relegation. We start a bit later because we have a shorter summer break than at least all the teams who have played on Championship level [last season].
“We start a bit later than our rivals because, yes, obviously the head coach starts a bit later. It's challenging and demanding, but we don't complain about the situation.
“It's just important to speak quite openly and transparently about it because it's a huge, huge task, but we have one special thing: this club has a pretty unique, great, unbelievable and the best supporter base in this whole league. I expect a little bit of, perhaps, a bumpy start, but during this period, we need our support, our fans even more and we need even bigger unity and togetherness in this club than we ever had in order to keep this train going.
“This is what we want to create as quickly as possible, but for that, we need great togetherness, great unity.”
