Leeds United
Leeds United added serious depth to the team that won the Championship in the summer. Fans knew that the team had to spend to improve the quality in the team ahead of their return to the Premier League.
10 new players arrived at Elland Road, and with that came expectations of competition within the squad. And that showed very early in the season as some favourites from the Championship campaign lost their place in the team. Some new signings adapted to the team very quickly, while others took a different path to the first team.
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Players like Anton Stach and Sean Longstaff hit the ground running from the start, and Gabriel Gudmundsson has quietly been on of the Whites’ best performers this year. Other players took a while before adapting to the first team; Jaka Bijol, Sebastiaan Bornauw and James Justin had to wait for their chance to play.
Major Leeds United decision in January revealed
When Bornauw and Justin were limited to mostly cameos in the first team, some fans questioned their signing in the first place. But late in December, when the fixtures piled up and injuries were frequent, their need was highlighted. The duo have shown that they are solid additions to the squad moving forward. Sebastiaan Bornauw’s situation was more complicated than Justin’s, at some point he wanted to leave Elland Road.
Graham Smyth confirmed this on the Inside Elland Road podcast, saying that Leeds shut down interest from a German club:
“There was interest in Sebastiaan Bornauw this month, from Germany, I believe Mainz was one of those teams that was looking at him quite keenly, which almost surprised me in a way, because he hasn’t played, but maybe it’s because he hasn’t played and maybe it’s clubs that missed out on him in the summer coming back in, maybe it’s almost like a little bit of a Buonanotte thing that they were playing on, thinking you’ve not played that much at Leeds.
“But he hasn’t played that much at Leeds out if injury not just out of selection and he has got in when he’s been fit and played some minutes and looked pretty solid… But Leeds shut that all down very quickly because, for obvious reasons they would not be minded to sell a centre back this month.”
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Whites made the right decision
Keeping Sebastiaan Bornauw is a good decision on the part of the club; letting him go at this point of the season would be ridiculous. Even if the player was concerned about lack of playing time, his presence in the team means a lot. Leeds saw Joe Rodon get injured for a few games and had to scramble to get options to fill in. Bornauw in the team means that Daniel Farke will not have to panic anytime a defender gets injured. And seeing how difficult it is to get a replacement this month, it was a shrewd decision.