When Leeds United's starting line-up was announced in a social media post from the club's account before kick-off last Friday night against Nottingham Forest, the most notable topic in the comments was disappointment that Ilia Gruev was starting.
The general sentiments can be summed up by one tweet: "Gruev wasn't good enough for the Championship, but they let him start every Premier League game."
While the Bulgarian is a defensive midfielder, his four assists and zero goals in the previous 67 league appearances before Friday night's 3-1 victory over Forest had not got everyone enthused.
But after being kicked in the head by team-mate Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the 65th minute, it was Gruev's name ringing out around Elland Road. At that stage, Leeds were 3-0 up, Gruev had two assists and was having his best game in a Leeds shirt.
But the Bulgarian midfielder didn't just play well last Friday, his performance was statistically one of the all-time great individual efforts seen at Elland Road.
Gruev became only the third player in the Premier League since 2003 (when Opta began tracking these metrics) to complete over 25 passes, have a passing accuracy of 98% or more and register two assists.
"It's not that often that he shines in the offence with goals or assists, so it's even better that he has done that on Friday night," Daniel Farke said of Illia at the pre-Chelsea news conference.
One of the things the Leeds manager perhaps hasn't been given enough credit for, is improving players; and Gruev's performance has shown that even Leeds fans don't know how good this team could be.
When asked if Gruev was OK after a game in which he was kicked in the head, Farke said "Ilia is tough" and in that sense the Bulgarian is representing Leeds in more ways than one.
Find more from Adonis Storr at The Roaring Peacock
