Farke must drop Leeds flop who was even worse than Dan James vs Norwich

Leeds United qualified for the quarter-finals of the FA Cup for the first time in more than two decades after beating Norwich City 3-0 at Elland Road on Sunday.

The Whites eased through a comfortable win over the injury-riddled Championship outfit, with goals from Sean Longstaff, Gabriel Gudmundsson, and Joel Piroe.

Having fallen out of favour in the Premier League, Piroe scored for the first time since he netted in the Championship in April of last year, avoiding going a full year without a goal.

The Dutchman took his chance to catch the eye in the number ten position, scoring a goal and creating two chances, and he will be hoping that Daniel Farke was impressed with his display.

Leeds’ head coach made a host of changes to his starting line-up to provide other players with opportunities to show him that they deserve to play more in the Premier League, and some of them took that opportunity.

How Leeds beat Norwich

Norwich came into the game on a run of nine wins in 11 matches in all competitions, so they were no easy opponents by any means, but they were without 13 first-team players, and started a defensive midfielder, Liam Gibbs, on the right wing.

Leeds still had a job to do to get through the tie, though, and they did it brilliantly. They made the Canaries look worse than what they are because of the intensity and timing of their press, squeezing the pitch to force their second-choice goalkeeper Dan Grimshaw to go long to Mathias Kvistgaarden, an undersized centre-forward, in the first half.

The ten changes meant that Leeds had plenty of players who were fresh and ready to provide energy in the press, which helped them to execute it to perfection.

Of course, they then scored three excellent goals through their dominance in the game, scoring twice in the first half before Piroe finished the match off late on.

Dan James was one of the players brought in to stake a claim for a place in the side, but the Wales international failed with all four of his attempted crosses and did not register a single shot on goal.

The Leeds star who was even worse than Dan James

The former Manchester United forward was not the worst player who was brought back into the starting line-up, though, as he did create a ‘big chance’ for the team, despite generally struggling in the final third.

Wilfried Gnonto started on the left flank, with James on the right, and was even worse than the Welsh winger with his rare opportunity to impress Farke.

The Italy U21 international has only started four times in the Premier League this season, and the last start he made in the league came in the 3-2 defeat to Manchester City in November.

Gnonto proved why Farke has been right not to include him in the starting line-up in the Premier League week-in-week-out with an underwhelming performance against the Canaries.

The Italian winger lost possession 12 times from 44 touches, once every 3.6 touches on average, and failed to create any ‘big chances’ for the team with those touches of the ball.

Vs Norwich	Gnonto	James
Minutes	90	70
Goals	0	0
Key passes	1	1
Big chances created	0	1
Touches	44	22
Possession lost	12x	11x
Tackles won	0	1

He was even worse than James, who created a ‘big chance’ for the team with half as many touches, and should be immediately dropped from the starting line-up for the clash with Crystal Palace next Sunday.

Unfortunately, it was the same story when Gnonto started against Birmingham City, another Championship side, on the right flank in the previous round of the FA Cup.

The 22-year-old attacker completed no dribbles, did not create any chances, and did not register a single shot on target in 68 minutes against the Blues at St. Andrew’s, which led to him playing just 31 minutes across the next three league games.

After this underwhelming performance against Norwich, it remains to be seen how many chances he will get to impress in the upcoming Premier League matches as Leeds battle to avoid relegation back down to the second tier.