Areas Of Concern? Why Leeds United Need More Signings For The Season?
In terms of sheer numbers, it seems Thomas Christiansen and the Leeds board have made enough inroads in the summer transfer market to be able to convert Leeds’ seventh-place finish last year, into promotion this term.
An away win at Bolton on the opening weekend would go some way to back that up, however a 3-2 win there is probably not going to be anyone’s season highlight really and they really need to be aiming for automatic promotion rather than simply a top six finish.
The play-offs are a total lottery some years and if possible, Leeds need to flex their muscles and go for a top two spot. With that in mind, is this squad now good enough? On paper, you’d have to say no really as more quality is needed in certain areas.
The full-back area seems to be solved now with both Gaetano Berardi and Vurnon Anita very versatile and being able to cover either flank. Cameron Borthwick-Jackson has been brought in to replace Charlie Taylor at left-back and Luke Ayling remains in the squad as first choice right-back so that seems fine until now.
Pontus Jansson, Matthew Pennington and Liam Cooper will most likely look after the central defensive positions between the three of them and although another centre-back wouldn’t go amiss, I doubt it’s an area they’ll struggle with too much.
Their deeper central midfield positions are well looked after too, with the aforementioned Anita capable of providing good cover there along with Liam Bridcutt and Toumani Diagouraga, while Ronaldo Vieira and Kalvin Phillips have each been excellent.
The issue then seems to be in the more forward positions with the wide positions covered right now by Ezgjan Alioski, Kemar Roofe and Hadi Sacko. It’s not certain at all that those three will provide enough to turn the club into title contenders, plus an extra winger to provide completion would not go amiss.
The central positions look even worse with Pablo Hernandez just about guaranteed of his position in the middle of the 4-2-3-1 formation, though he is not looking capable of producing his best over 50-odd games. They showed a huge reliance on Chris Wood last season too and if the striker were to spend an extended period of time on the sidelines, the likes of Doukara or Saiz would not provide anything like the same quality.
It’s easier said than done, but a central striker and no.10 would probably complete the squad for the first half of this season and a failure to land them could mean Leeds losing too much ground between now and January.
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