Daniel Farke hails ‘great self-belief’ as Leeds snatch late win over Fulham

Leeds boss Daniel Farke described his side’s 1-0 home Premier League win against Fulham as their best of the season.

Substitute Lukas Nmecha fired a deserved stoppage-time winner as Leeds halted in-form Fulham’s six-game unbeaten league run to stay eight points clear of the relegation zone.

Leeds beat Everton on the opening day following promotion and have also defeated Chelsea and Brentford, 3-1 and 4-1 respectively, at Elland Road this season.

When asked why this latest win was better, Farke said: “Today we faced a really in-form side, who’ve delivered performances, result after result in recent weeks.

“We fully deserved to win this game. We didn’t give one proper chance during the whole game. We’ve missed several chances, but stayed relentless to the end.

“We were able to deliver a clean sheet today – I think the first at home since August – and we had late heartbreak against Newcastle.

“And then today, we were there with the late goal in added time after we lost the first fixture (against Fulham at Cottage Road) in a similar way.”

Farke was without Slovenia defender Jaka Bijol (hamstring), who could be out for up to five weeks, and midfielder Anton Stach (adductor), with both players pulling up in training on Friday.

“Expectations were also bit higher in comparison to when we play Chelsea or Liverpool away – but then to deliver, for me, is a really great feeling,” Farke added.

“We showed great mentality today and great self-belief.”

Leeds remain 16th in the table, but sit closer to the top seven than the bottom three and have reduced the gap on 10th-placed Fulham to six points.

The Londoners’ boss Marco Silva, who was booked in the first half for dissent having just served a touchline ban, had no complaints with the result.

Silva said: “This was not a good performance at all. We lost the game. We have to congratulate Leeds and move on.

“Second half, we didn’t perform at the level that the game demands really. It’s as simple as that.

“They scored in the end, but they had chances to score earlier than that.”

Silva said he was waiting to learn the full extent of Sasa Lukic’s injury after the Serbia midfielder was replaced by Tom Cairney in the second half and conceded his side did not pose any second-half threat.

The Portuguese added: “We cannot perform always incredibly well, like I would like to see and all our fans, but normally we create more chances.

“I don’t remember one clear chance from the second half. That shows that we didn’t perform at the way we should. Even on the ball, we were not aggressive enough.”