Daniel Farke has issued a damning knockdown of Leeds United’s wantaway stars and how he will protect his core group of players

Begging wantaway players to stay on and be a part of Daniel Farke’s Leeds United project is very much not the German’s style. The manager will move them out of the team’s dressing room and have them train on their own, unable to infect his committed players.

Wilfried Gnonto has already downed tools this week in protest at the club’s firm insistence he will not be sold this summer. Today, Luis Sinisterra was missing from the matchday squad, though Farke would only say he was unavailable and nothing more.

If Sinisterra has expressed a reluctance to play any more for the Whites this month, he will not find himself in the main group at Thorp Arch any longer. Farke will not beg him or anyone else in the squad to play because nobody is bigger than Leeds United.

“It’s quite normal it affects them (the main group) because there are always discussions and they’re not living on the moon,” he said. “If some players want to leave and are not available it doesn’t make life easy for the group.

“That’s for sure, but I’m quite pragmatic in this situation. Anyone who doesn’t want to be with us will be moved out of the dressing room and won’t train with us because I just want a group that is really fully focused and fully committed.

“Believe me, this club is bigger than any player or even any manager or even any board member. No one is bigger than the club and this is my attitude.

“If someone doesn’t want to be with us it’s not like I’m praying and begging ‘please, please play for us.’ For this club is much too big and if someone doesn’t want to be a member of our group then my reaction is always from this moment on, he doesn’t train with us, he can train more or less alone and in their own dressing room, but not with us anymore.

“I just need players who are fully committed to defend this shirt.”