All quiet on the transfer front, and the fans aren’t happy
Tuesday, 2nd Sep 2025 22:23 by Tim Whelan
Having been rebuffed by a number of attacking targets Leeds turned their attentions towards Fulham’s attacking midfielder Harry Wilson as the deadline approached, but even that didn’t work out. Leading to a certain amount of moaning on social media, while Daniel Farke must be feeling frustrated.
After the draw with Newcastle at the weekend, Daniel Farke acknowledged that although the club had made a good start to the transfer window with the reinforcements to the defence and central midfield, it had tailed off, and we had yet to recruit the same quality further up the field. The manager said “I don’t play any games.”
“Everyone in the club says: ‘OK, we want to try everything to give us the best possible squad’. Everyone wants to add, in the offence, some more quality players. We have shown we are competitive in the first three games, but it will be difficult (thereafter). There’s also no moaning, but, until the last hour of the window, we have to try everything to bring some more quality in.”
And there certainly wasn’t any lack of effort in the last 48 hours of the window. After Buonanotte decided he’d rather sit on the bench at Stamford Bridge, we were linked with Bilal El Khannouss, Dilane Bakwa, Eduard Spertsyan and even a return for Manor Solomon. Emi Buendia was another possibility, being well known to Farke, having previously been the star of his second promotion with Norwich.
It was thought that his present club Aston Villa might have allowed the Argentinian to leave on loan as they brought in Elliot and Sancho, but in the end they decided not to sanction his departure. And so with a final throw of the die, Leeds decided to focus on Harry Wilson on the final day before the 7pm deadline, and a private plane was charted to bring him up Cardiff, where the Welshman had been preparing for international duty.
Wilson seemed an uninspiring signing, and didn’t fit the profile of our previous signings, being neither 6 foot tall nor with a ban injury record, but he can at least deliver a decent set piece, and so bring us something that the Leeds squad has been sadly lacking for at least three years. There’s not much point sending a lot of giants forward at free kicks and corners if there’s no one to pick them out.
Fulham and Leeds were in talks throughout the day, but Fulham decided that Wilson was not for sale, at least in part because of their own failure to sign Tyrique George from Chelsea. And so the deadline came and went with no new attacking midfield player signed during the window. And almost immediately the knives were out on social media for the 49ers, plus sporting director Adam Underwood and head of recruitment Alex Davies.
Some typical comments were “In terms of attackers, an absolute car crash of a window!”. “This is a complete failure from the recruitment team”. And “the owners have massively let him [Daniel Farke] and us down. This is a huge embarrassment for the board given the smug promises they’ve made.”
Though some fans pointed out that it wasn’t for want of trying, and we can’t expect to land every player we go for. “It’s reality time; Leeds have tried to be ambitious in the window but the combination of PSR constraints, the relegation reputation of promoted sides and the allure of London and big cities has conspired against them.”
And what must Daniel Farke be thinking? On Saturday he did say “If not [managing to get some more players in], we also won’t raise the white flag and say, ‘OK, that’s it’.” Naturally he’s going to battle on and try to get the best out of the players he has now got, but after two Premier league campaigns with Norwich where he wasn’t given the resources to do the job, he probably hoped for better this time round.
We did actually manage to complete one deal yesterday, but that was Darko Gyabi departure to join Hull City on a permanent deal. There has been no mention of a fee, and it’s possible there wasn’t one, as Hull are still under a transfer embargo. He only managed three first team appearances for Leeds, with his only start being against Shrewsbury in the league cup.
Whenever I saw him I noticed that although he’s 6 foot 4, he seemed remarkably reluctant to jump and head the ball. If someone had taught him how to do that, he could have been useful. But he did play over 50 times in the Championship over two loan spells at Plymouth, and is now back at that level with the Tigers.
We wish Darko the best of luck, and the same to Daniel Farke, as he may be needing it over the next few months.
Reuters
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