Daniel Farke drops honest Leeds United transfer update | OneFootball

This may come as a bit of a shock to some Leeds supporters.

Daniel Farke has admitted that he's not expecting much activity from Leeds United in the January transfer window, as new potential roles emerge for his star midfield pairing: Ao Tanaka and Joe Rothwell.

With another promotion battle staring them in the face, Leeds need to make sure they come out of the other side of the upcoming transfer window better than they did with the last one.

Losing four of your best players - Archie Gray, Glen Kamara, Georginio Rutter and Crysencio Summerville, in Leeds' case - is going to cause real damage to any team, but they were able to salvage it with some late additions to Farke's squad.

Those four brought £113 million into Elland Road before the start of September, giving Leeds a decent sized piggy bank for the upcoming window, to say the least.

Daniel Farke makes stark January transfer window admission

Despite the large amount of money that the club will be sitting on, the German first-team boss has set expectations low for January. He has revealed that he will be surprised if United make moves left, right and centre in the early stages of 2025.

"Sometimes you have to react to the reality and for that you can't rule anything out," Farke said via the Yorkshire Evening Post.

"It's a while until the window opens and until then, won't comment any speculations. We have eight games before the 4th January. Hopefully not but potentially are there injuries of key players, in which position and how is the situation.

"If you ask me right now, I don't expect a busy period at all, in January."

One of the positions that Leeds could potentially address in the new year is the number 10 spot. Rutter's departure opened up a space for the returning Brenden Aaronson to fill, but they could still do with some more depth in this area.

One midfield plus that come their way sooner rather than later is the return of Ethan Ampadu, who is expected to return ahead of his originally scheduled comeback in early 2025 after he suffered a knee injury in October.

His knock, and a similar one suffered by Ilia Gruev just days after, opened the first XI door for Rothwell and Tanaka, who have done remarkably well since coming into the first-team. But the return of the captain could see a positional switch for one, or even both, of them, to somewhere slightly higher up the pitch.

Farke continued, on Ampadu's soon-to-be return: "This all is connected. It would perhaps free up one of our other midfielders, to use them in a bit of a higher role.

"For that we don't take a decision too early. After these (six) games we can discuss about everything and draw a line under it. At the moment, I'm far away from making a judgement."

Daniel Farke is probably just trying to keep expectations low

It's never a good thing to promise the world and not be able to deliver it. You don't want to over commit yourself and then realise you haven't met the expectations that you set.

Maybe it is the case that Leeds aren't going to do much business in the January window. It'd feel like a missed opportunity given their depth problems in certain and how open the promotion race is, but if the boss is happy with what he has then that could well play out.

What is potentially happening here is Farke not setting himself up for a huge fall. He'd maybe rather leave Leeds supporters surprised by the good amount of activity the club had in the window than surprised by their inactivity.