Former Norwich City winger Matt Jarvis has told Leeds United what to expect from new head coach Daniel Farke, saying the players will ‘know pretty quickly’ exactly what the German wants from them.
Jarvis was part of Farke’s Canaries side for the first two years of his reign at Carrow Road, and although he never actually made a competitive appearance under the new Whites boss, he saw first hand how Farke set about implementing his playing style into the squad and inspired them to win the Championship in his second season in charge.
The winger told BBC Radio Leeds: “For me, first impressions…he was very calm, softly spoken, obviously he had the slicked-back hair at the time. He came into the changing rooms, sat down and had the meeting with us – but it’s not until you get outside and you get on the training pitch that you start seeing the work that he would put in.
“You work extremely hard on the training field – longer than I was used to I suppose – but tactically very astute. He completely knows exactly how he wants his teams and his players to play in a system, the type of passing and the movement from the players. I think the Leeds boys will know pretty quickly what his methods are and what his coaching staff will ask of them.”
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Jarvis added: “He’s definitely [about] possession-based football. He likes forward passing, he likes players to float into different types of positions. He doesn’t want out-and-out wingers, he likes the wingers to float inside a little bit to create more of a packed midfield that supplies the full-backs to get the width.
“The biggest thing I noticed to start with was the way he didn’t want masses of crosses. Everything would be more cutbacks – getting to the byline and cutting it back to the edge of the box or to the six-yard box. He’s not for that centre-forward that just wants the raining crosses coming in; he was more about get it wide, get the full-backs on the overlap, and cutting the ball back to the edge of the box. In possession, you need to make sure you keep changing the play.
“It’ll be great for the midfield players in that Leeds team. They’ll be getting lots of the ball, they’ll be able to create numerous opportunities for the forward players, and the full-backs will be on their bikes every opportunity on the overlap.”
