Daniel Farke says Leeds United paid the price of his risk-taking as he tries to work out what went wrong against Middlesbrough FC
Daniel Farke he was not yet sure what went wrong for Leeds United as a terrible 20 minutes saw them dumped out of the League Cup by Middlesbrough, but took responsibility for it anyway after his "risk" backfired.
The Whites had far more of the ball in the first half at Elland Road, even if Boro had more chances, and few saw the scale of the Teesssiders' 3-0 win coming.
All the goals came in the third quarter of the game, through Anfernee Dijksteel, Delano Burgzorg and Josh Coburn.
Farke was at a loss to explain how the wheels came off so spectacularly for his side.
"I'm struggling to have a really clear explanation right now," admitted the Leeds manager. "In all areas in those 20 minutes we were not ourselves.
"In possession we had unbelievable mistakes, losses of the ball, our passing did not work any more so we were not compact, we were stretched.
"Perhaps we lost a bit the nerves after they scored the goal.
"If you have then eight or nine changes (to the starting XI) perhaps the players were not in the rhythm and lose a bit of confidence and trust in the process.
"I have to watch the game back to get a better feeling of what was the reason but in general the main reason we lost our head a bit and our trust and our nerves was that we had so many changes."
And that, he said, was his fault.
"Players don't have to be too self-critical or dwell on it because it was my decision to rotate," said Farke.
"I just had the feeling we needed to rest a few players like Daniel James who had an injury in pre-season and I didn't want him on the pitch.
"Mateo Joseph is a young player who needs sometimes to rest because he always plays with 100 per cent intensity. I also got the feeling we had a few players not there at 100 per cent, they need some minutes under their belt and because we such a quick turnaround and play on Saturday lunchtime in a really difficult at West Brom so I risked this game a little bit with eight or nine rotations hoping we still found a way to be successful.
"It was risky to do this and if it was without any risk probably every team would do ths.
"It was my decision to do this.
"I'm responsible that we won't win the Carabo Cup this season, I take it on the chin."