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Daniel Farke’s pre-match thoughts
double quotation markAt this stage of the season it’s never healthy for a group if you have three weeks without a competitive game. We had some players in action during the international break so it makes sense to rest all the others [who haven’t been playing].
It’s more than two decades since Leeds were in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup so we take this game very seriously.
[On Leeds’ failure to score in four of the last five games] For a newly promoted we have scored a lot of goals overall. We’ve also had three clean sheets in a row which is also important to me. During a long season it’s normal to have a period when you score goal after goal and sometimes you are struggling a bit.
“If ‘both teams could arguably do without this game’, then the FA Cup has fallen in importance even more than I thought,” writes Gary Stover. “Would the fans like to see a Leeds-Chelsea rematch at Wembley even if only a semi-final? Would the Southampton followers rather finish sixth in the Championship or go back to a final at Wembley? Hopefully the players of all five teams left will simply try to do what they do best and win whatever game is before them. I actually think that’s what will happen.”
Why Football Sucks in ‘26.
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Both managers have picked but not full-strength XIs, with five changes for West Ham and three for Leeds.
West Ham bring in Alphonse Areola, Kyle Walker-Peters, Max Kilman, Soungoutou Magassa and Adama Traore for Mads Hermansen, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Kostas Mavropanos, Tomas Soucek and Pablo.
Lucas Perri, Ao Tanaka and Noah Okafor start for Leeds in place of Karl Darlow, Brendon Aaronson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
West Ham (4-2-3-1) Areola; Walker-Peters, Kilman, Disasi, Diouf; Magassa, Potts; Bowen, Fernandes, Traore; Castellanos.
Subs: Herrick, Pablo Felipe, Lamadrid, Soucek, Scarles, Kante, Golambeckis, Mayers, Ajala.
Leeds United (3-4-1-2) Lucas Perri; Rodon, Bijol, Struijk; Bogle, Ampadu, Stach, Justin; Tanaka; Okafor, Nmecha.
Subs: Darlow, Byram, Bornauw, Longstaff, Gruev, Aaronson, Gnonto, Piroe, Calvert-Lewin.
Referee Craig Pawson.
Updated at 11.03 EDT
Louise Taylor
As Leeds travel to West Ham for an FA Cup quarter-final both teams could arguably do without, one thing is not in doubt: Daniel Farke knows how to read a balance sheet. As the holder of an MA in economics and a diploma in sporting directorship, the Leeds manager needs no reminders that, financially, avoiding relegation is infinitely more important than trying to win the FA Cup. “The Premier League’s our bread and butter,” he said on Thursday . “It’s our priority.”
There is, though, another side to Farke. Away from the training pitches at Thorp Arch, one of the German’s preferred ways of switching off is to spend hours reading on his sofa, transported to different worlds through his love of literary fiction. His favourite novels include Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Given Farke fully appreciates the best managers are, in a different context, similarly expert storytellers, can he resist pursuing a plot line that may just conclude with a survival and Cup glory double? Achieve that and the Elland Road hierarchy would find it very hard to resist furnishing the 49-year-old with the new contract he craves.
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And then there were five. Manchester City, Chelsea and Southampton are through to the FA Cup semi-final; either West Ham or Leeds will join them this evening.
There’s been a slightly strange build up to this game, with the focus as much on the Premier League – both teams are in a relegation battle and will meet on the last day of the season – as the FA Cup.
When the game starts, that should all go out the window. The historical context makes this a seriously big game. West Ham haven’t played in an FA Cup semi-final since 2006, Leeds since 1987. In that context, this match is kind of a big deal.
Kick off 4.30pm.