Leeds United v Watford: Solving the Elland Road puzzle is key for Leeds - as Farke prepares to face good friend Valerien Ismael

In truth, Daniel Farke - who does not strike you as the sort of manager who leaves anything to chance - has already been making contingencies.

He may be German, but he has been around the block long enough in England to know that when the overwhelming majority of teams who come to Elland Road - certainly at Championship level - the aim will be to spoil, drop deep, break up the game where necessary and not give the club's raucous support any encouragement whatsoever.

Leeds have certainly provided warmth and animation on their travels so far this season, registering fine wins at Millwall and Ipswich which have turned a few heads across the second-tier landscape.

At home, they have not been beaten so far in 2023-24, but have yet to win at league level. Their last three points at LS11 was back on April 4.

Overcoming teams who will make no apologies for heading to Leeds and dropping deep with a low block to stymie United - as Sheffield Wednesday did recently - could well assume a fair bit of importance in the context of their season.

On solving the puzzle, Farke acknowledged: "Once you have a look in recent years in more or less each and every league - also abroad - and (see) who wins titles, there is sometimes an exception.

"But normally it's always a team was also able to open up pretty compact opponents and find ways to do this.

"This is why I love to work that much on this topic with my lads because it's relatively easy to work to be compact and with perfect distances between the lines and also all over the pitch to be compact, it's more or less easy.

"But to find solutions against us to find these gaps and the creativity and the space also to open them (opponents) up to make them lose their compactness, this is much more complicated.

"This is also what makes the difference between the top, top class teams and the good teams. Obviously we also want to be a top-class team in this division and for that we work a lot on this topic."

A striker in his playing days, Farke faces a former defender he knows well from German football in Watford manager and former Barnsley head coach Valerien Ismael.

A meticulous operator, Ismael displayed his eye for detail in his time at Oakwell, with his players quickly learning about his high standards.

Farke remembers Ismael being 'horrible to play against' as a player.

His successful Barnsley side had the same trait and to be successful, his current one must develop that quality.

The pair know each other well from time spent together working on their UEFA Pro licenses in Germany.

Farke added: "He's a great, great guy. I like him really, really much.

"We spent more or less our education in Germany, it's quite a long time together - 12 months - and you have to be there more or less on a daily basis. It's quite intense.

"It was a good time and we've played also in the Championship a few times against each other.

"He obviously was a top-class defender and played for Bayern Munich. He won many, many titles but I think I played once against him in a friendly, I was the striker and he was a centre-back.

"He was horrible to play against because he was so hard and tough working, so I was a bit scared!"