Leeds United were dealt a brand new injury concern to winger Largie Ramazani in the Whites’ latest Championship win over Watford on Tuesday.
Leeds 2-1 Watford
Daniel Farke named an unchanged team from the side that beat Sheffield United last week at Elland Road, and that decision paid off in the first 10 minutes.
Ramazani netted his first Elland Road goal in the opening four minutes, and shortly after that, Brenden Aaronson doubled the lead on what was his 24th birthday. Watford goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann had an evening to forget in front of the south stand, with his two errors resulting in goals for Ramazani and Aaronson.
It looked as if a routine victory was on the cards, however, Watford pulled a goal back in the second half through Kwadwo Baah and made Leeds work for the three points.
Leeds are now averaging two points per game after 11 fixtures and Farke was pleased with the victory, saying: “First of all I’m really happy with the three points. I was worried after 10 minutes when we were 2-0 up. I’ve experienced so often this situation.
“Everyone praises us after a magical evening, the national press, Sky, the opponents’ manager [Chris Wilder] says no one will finish above this team and you go into the next game against a really physical side, experienced, good team and go 2-0 up. It almost always leads to a situation where you do one step less, there is an unlucky moment and after such a start you quite often drop points and say you went ahead too early.
“But we can’t criticise anything, we created many more good chances, the only thing that was missing was the third goal. Largie Ramazani came off, Manor Solomon had to play longer than I wanted. We had 10 to 15 poor minutes at the beginning of the second half but nothing major.”
As Farke alludes to, Ramazani’s evening was cut short after his goal after a heavy but fair challenge from Festy Ebosele. The summer signing is now the latest injury concern, with Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev sidelined long term, while Max Wober is also injured.
Largie Ramazani injury update from Leeds
Reacting to the injury, The Yorkshire Evening Post’s Graham Smyth described the injury to Ramazani as a “massive shame”.
After the game, Farke said that Ramazani, who earns £910,000-a-year in Yorkshire, “twisted his ankle” and needs “further assessment”.
“Rolled, twisted his ankle, it was pretty painful. We have to wait for further assessment. I hope for not a bad injury, we deserve a bit of luck.”
With Ramazani possibly out of Saturday’s trip to Bristol City, Farke will likely turn to Manor Solomon or Dan James to come in. The pair have also had their injury issues this season but once again featured on Tuesday evening from the bench.
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Elsewhere, Josuha Guilavogui has signed his Leeds contract and looks set to fill the void left by Ampadu and Gruev, while also providing cover for Joe Rodon and Pascal Struijk at centre-back.
