Exclusive: Ilia Gruev speaks to LeedsLive about his Leeds United journey up to now including his difficult 2023 start and how Daniel Farke landed him last summer
In four months at Leeds United, Ilia Gruev had amassed two starts. Of the nine summer additions made at Elland Road, the Bulgarian was the greatest unknown quantity and the one you would have been forgiven for calling a misstep.
A belated full debut would finally arrive in late October. A wet and windy Wednesday night at Stoke City: the true acid test of English football. Sadly for Gruev, it was one of those nights the entire team struggled to convince and he looked off the pace from the start. “I have some good performances and I knew I had to be patient, but it wasn't so easy. Sometimes you are at home and you are thinking ‘Why am I not playing? I want to play more, I want to show myself,’ but this is the profession, the job of a footballer.
“I talked to the boss and he said ‘Continue like this, train hard like this and sooner or later there will be a chance and then you have to use it,’” said Gruev. “That's what he said. I think I did my job.” “Then suddenly, it was so quick, everything. He called me and he said ‘I want you’ and then it was so quick because there were only two or three days left.”
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