Leeds United have a careful balancing act to play when they host AS Monaco in their final winter friendly ahead of the Premier League return. With only three Whites players at the World Cup, many members of the squad are in need of minutes to ensure they are ready to face Manchester City.
However, Rene Maric spoke after Friday's win over Real Sociedad and confirmed Leeds would take no unnecessary risks. Jack Harrison for example, was set to start against the Spanish side but was pulled out just before kick off due to a bit of muscle tightness.
"Yeah, I think that it's a phase of pre-season," Maric said. "Basically, that's unusual in winter where there are situations where you opt out of going into risk. So Jack is not injured and I think he could have pushed a play but why should we risk it 12 games before Man City that he makes something or maybe risk something for the training process towards Man City or in the game.
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"If you can take him out today and train him properly the next day is to just risk nothing. So that's the reasoning behind some of these decisions."
A number of players are in need of minutes on Wednesday; the likes of Robin Koch, Junior Firpo, Diego Llorente and Patrick Bamford are yet to feature in either friendly, while Crysencio Summerville was withdrawn very early on due to injury at Elche. The aforementioned quartet have all been nursing fitness issues in recent weeks, but despite their need for gametime, if there is any element of risk attached with them playing, they will not be involved.
Maric said: "We'll have to look how the training goes, how the players feel, if we don't risk anything we obviously try out some things. We want to bring the whole group on a level where everyone is ready because we trust the whole group like he did before the break and I think that we're in a good way to do so."
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