Leeds United have made a solid start to the season, strengthening their chances of Premier League survival. A string of strong early performances has helped the club move past the setbacks of the transfer window.
The Leeds recruitment team were under pressure to build a squad good enough to stay up in the Premier League after winning promotion from the Championship at the end of last season.
The Whites ended up spending more than £100m on 10 new players to bolster their Championship-winning squad from the 2024/25 campaign. However, the club did come under criticism for missing out on a few top targets during the transfer window.
However, the way the season has panned out at the start, Leeds appeared to have avoided a couple of big-money transfer disasters, which could have really derailed their chances of surviving in the Premier League.
Leeds United avoided a couple of huge transfer mistakes
The narrative surrounding Leeds’ transfer window centred on the mishaps they committed towards the end of the window, when they failed to bring in the two additional attacking signings that Daniel Farke had wanted.
However, the story of the Leeds transfer window was one of the club missing out on several of its top transfer targets.
Anton Stach and Sean Longstaff have done well at the start of the season, but they were not first-choice targets for Leeds as they wanted Habib Diarra.
However, Sunderland beat them to his signature by tabling a bid worth £30m and convincing Diarra to move to the Stadium of Light in the summer.
But the midfielder has been ruled out until December due to a groin injury, and may miss more games as he is scheduled to go away for the African Cup of Nations.
Diarra has succumbed to a kind of soft-tissue injury, which could have occurred even if he joined Leeds, and that would have been a big problem for Farke.
Igor Paixao is one more player that Leeds wanted and is just coming back from injury at Marseille. He has not looked like a world beater in France.
Noah Okafor has given a better account of himself at Leeds than Paixao has with the French giants.
Leeds avoided spending big on two players and spread their budget out on several names
Sporting director Adam Underwood coped with criticism for not spending enough money on players to bring in real individual quality to the team.
However, had Leeds spent £60m on Diarra and Paixao, then the club would have been in a soup early in the season, as the Whites may not have padded out the rest of the squad.
Leeds would have failed to bring in cover for key areas, and they may not have signed both Stach and Longstaff, who have come in handy.
The Whites may not have signed James Justin as cover for Jayden Bogle, which is now looking like a huge decision due to Bogle’s recent injury.
The benefit of hindsight is wonderful, but it appears that Underwood and the rest of the club got their strategy spot. They decided against going big for any individual player and opted to improve the overall quality of the squad.
Can you name these 10 former Leeds United midfielders?
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