Leeds United are determined to bounce back after losing the Championship playoff final in May.
The Whites won 90 points last season, and scored 81 goals but it still was not enough to seal automatic qualification as Leicester City and Ipswich Town finished in the top two. After a shocking summer transfer window, Leeds were not expected to challenge for promotion this time around. The club lost Archie Gray, Georginio Rutter and Crysencio Summerville to Premier league clubs.
Daniel Farke has done a brilliant job this season, and after 15 league games, Leeds are firmly in the promotion race. The Whites are in third place in the Championship, just two points behind Sunderland and Sheffield United. Farke’s side boast the second best attack in the league, and third best defence in the competition.
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Leeds United to make shock transfer decision
Credit: Imago Images
Leeds’ start to season got worse after Ethan Ampadu and Illia Gruev were ruled out for months with serious injuries. Star summer signing Largie Ramazani began the campaign brilliantly with three goals and one assist in six starts, but also got injured. Despite having scored the second highest amount of goals in the league, fans are still concerned about the performances. Far too many times this season, Leeds have failed to break down stubborn opponents.
This has lead to some people around the club criticizing star striker Joel Piroe. The Dutchman is the club’s top scorer with six goals this season, but his all round contribution has not been great. This has lead to whispers that he may be sold for the right offer. Graham Smyth discussed this on the Inside Elland Road podcast:
“Like we saw with [Glen] Kamara, Leeds saw an opportunity there to sell a player who they signed for £5million, a perfectly good player in the Championship but they thought they could augment the midfield with a different profile and they saw an opportunity to make money,”
“And there was no sentiment whatsoever in that situation, it was ‘yeah, we can do better; we’re getting more money here, let’s pull the trigger on this’. I could possibly see that being the case with Piroe as well.
“If a Championship club is saying ‘hang on a minute, we play two up top, he’s going to get 15, 20 goals and he could shoot us to promotion, let’s go and spend £12million on him’. You know, a relegated side perhaps, 12 or 13 million [pound].
“If you were Leeds and you looked at that – it’s going to be difficult to turn down.”
Selling Piroe would be a bad decision
Daniel Farke agreed that the club needed a creative number 10 during the summer. Piroe’s struggles this season seem to correlate with the lack of creativity in the team. Selling him at this point would be naive; and Mateo Joseph has shown his quality this season, but is not ready to lead the line just yet.
