Burger king Anton Stach serves up set-piece special to lift Leeds at City Ground

Leeds midfielder Anton Stach has gone from stacking burgers to cooking up a set-piece special, with his late free-kick earning a 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest.

The German recently launched his own burger at a restaurant in Leeds city centre with proceeds going to charity and he was in sizzling form at the City Ground as his effort in the 88th minute earned a curtain-raising three points.

Stach has a reputation for scoring free-kicks, bagging four direct efforts last season, and boss Daniel Farke was confident as his player stood over the ball.

“Yes, actually, I was thinking about it,” he said. “Last season, I would have never thought because I was saying, ‘this is three steps. How do you want to score from there?’

“But he has done it time and time again. So he has surprised me last season.

“But, I trust him with everything. He has even released a burger right now, he had the launch a few days ago, and I never expected him to do this.

“He’s a bit of a weird and crazy guy, I expected when he was over the free-kick that he could do something special.

“I’m very happy. It couldn’t be a better way to start the season.

“The first game, the first three points, especially an away win at a very, very difficult ground in a very competitive and tight game.

“I think it was a very, very tight game, and it could have also gone in the other direction.

“But I’m happy and delighted that we could convert our nearly flawless pre-season to a perfect game day and get three points for us.”

It is the start of another new era at Forest as Oliver Glasner took charge of his first game in charge, but it had all the hallmarks of last season’s struggles.

Indeed, there were no new signings in Forest’s starting XI and their inability to take their chances cost them in the end, with Nikola Milenkovic hitting a post and Igor Jesus missing two good headers.

Glasner says there is no magic touch to turn Forest’s fortunes around.

“It was pretty clear that I can’t come with my staff and we lay the hands on the shoulder, and all of a sudden we play like Real Madrid in the 70s or whatever,” the Austrian said.

“I don’t know when they had their biggest time. That was clear, but again I could see us, and that’s why I said at the beginning, I could see a team that worked very hard to get the win, especially in the second half.

“But let’s say today, and this is always gives me a great feedback on how we deal now with this situation and this defeat.

“It was an OK performance from both teams. Typical first Premier League game after a long break, and this is also now not the time to bury our heads into the sand.

“There is no button to press. It is getting confidence in what we are doing.

“We still have a lot of things to do. I could see a lot of encouraging things but it is a process. You always have to respect the opposition, and the opposition was very physical and strong.”