Leeds United v Bristol City: Whites will have to think differently in the Premier League, Daniel Farke admits

Burnley's 5-0 win at Queens Park Rangers on Saturday means in all probability the Whites will have to beat Bristol City if they want to win the Championship. They will certainly have to if they want to become the first Leeds team to win 100 points in a league season.

But the main job was winning promotion back to the top-flight after two years away, achieved on Easter Monday.

Ipswich Town's relegation at the weekend highlighted what a daunting task that is. It was the earliest in Premier League history all three relegation places have been sewn up and the second season running the three sides going down were the three promoted the previous season.

Farke knows his team will have to play more cautiously next season, but said 2024-25 was just about doing the job his team narrowly failed to the previous year.

"You have your feelings and your thoughts about football anyway and it develops and hopefully it improves,” he said. “It has to evolve and develop because you always try to be ahead of the wave.

"I always try to improve little things but keeping in mind it is a project which needs to win many games and score many goals to win promotion.

"It's quite often the base that you need to score many goals because you need to win many games.

"We had two flying full-backs and it's no coincidence our full-backs have chipped in with many goals (10 between Junior Firpo and Jayden Bogle) and assists (13). Our ‘rest defending’ of how we want to control the counters was a bit more risky than what we will do at Premier League level.

"I was not thinking I wanted to stop the opponents' counter-attacks like I would do in the Premier League where there is even better individual quality and more pace and more strength. I wanted to do it in a way that was successful in the Championship.

"The experience of what you can do at times in the Championship has helped me more than thinking too much about next season."

Farke had a half-hour conversation with Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder on Tuesday – although the latter revealed it had to wait until the afternoon because Farke was still recovering from his celebrations when he rang in the morning.

"This is why this country is my second home," said the German.

"I like it that the first thing after the final whistle is go to the opponent regardless of the result and you shake hands. After the games we speak a little bit in the manager's lounge.

"This gentleman's behaviour is pretty important and I value this. You don't have it in other countries.

"Football and sport teaches us what life is all about. A dressing room is a perfect lesson in how we should live altogether in this world because in the dressing room it's not about religion, the passport, the colour, it's just players together with a spirit and everyone is accepted as an individual.

"You come along, you build your group and work for one target together.

"In my dressing room there are competitors for each position but if a full-back like Jayden Bogle plays an unbelievable game like he did the last game, even Sam Byram or Isaac Schmidt, who has a different passport, maybe a different religion, is arm in arm with him, congratulating him.

"We celebrate altogether and altogether we have something to cheer about. it's a perfect lesson about life. You can learn a lot in sport about how life should be structured.

"We are all on the same journey and it shows class when a manager like Chris rings me. Of course we want to be the best but we can cherish what different human beings are doing."