The crucial £11m signing Leeds could and should have made in the January transfer windowplaceholder image
The crucial £11m signing Leeds could and should have made in the January transfer window | AFP via Getty Images
Leeds passed up on opportunities to improve their squad in January - with one missed deal looking like a particularly problematic mistake.
It’s never easy to know which teams might have ‘won’ or ‘lost’ the transfer window until all of those new signings actually get out onto the grass, but at least one Premier League side made a compelling case for having had the country’s most confusing January: Leeds United.
For all the pre-season chatter than their transfer budget had been spent over the summer, this is a club which still found £40m down the back of the sofa to make a bid for Jørgen Strand Larsen – but then failed to complete a single permanent transfer after that deal fell apart despite pressing needs in multiple positions. It’s certainly a strange way to approach an impending relegation battle…
Why Leeds United had to sign a centre-back this winter – and failed
If Leeds are feeling positive about their chances of dodging the drop, then it’s mostly down to a recent uptick in form which happened after Daniel Farke switched to a 3-5-2 formation. It’s a decision which has paid dividends, but also given the German head coach a headache.
Leeds’ squad was ultimately constructed for a flat back four, and now they face the prospect of trying to get through the rest of the season with just four first-team centre-backs – one of whom, Sebastiaan Bornauw, has started just three league matches. The Dutchman was firmly out of favour until the tactical switch necessitated further involvement, and there were even pre-window rumours that he might leave Elland Road just months after joining the club.
The move to a back three has been a success, but Leeds still needed both depth and quality at the position in order to hold things together for long enough to steer clear of the relegation battle – and while their cushion over West Ham is comfortable enough as it stands, that could change rather quickly.
Had Leeds been too short of cash to make a deal happen, then their inaction would have been understandable, but their willingness to spend up to £40m on Strand Larsen, combined with their refusal to go any higher, gives us a clear indication of precisely how much money that had to spend. In that light, the fact that their entire January business consisted of a loan deal for Facundo Buonanotte feels rather bizarre.
In signing Buonanotte and attempting to sign Strand Larsen, the club made it clear that they recognised that there was a need for fresh ideas in attack as well, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s recent resurgence doing much of the heavy lifting up front – but the defence desperately needed to be addressed too.
Leeds will spend the rest of the season one injury or suspension away from playing Bornauw, a player Farke doesn’t seem to rate, two from asking Ethan Ampadu to fill in, and three from a potential disaster. Just go and ask a side like Tottenham Hotspur just how many injuries a team can have at the same time if they don’t get lucky.
The £11m centre-back Leeds had every chance to sign this winter
It’s even stranger to think that Leeds didn’t make all that much effort to sign a centre-back – as if they somehow looked at their current situation at that position and decided that everything was alright as it was.
The only defender with whom the club were seriously and repeatedly linked with Union Berlin’s Danilo Doekhi, who was reportedly available for something like £11m with his contract running down in the German capital.
Doekhi isn’t such a startlingly good defender that he would be likely to single-handedly make the difference between remaining in the top flight and a swift return to the second tier, but the Dutchman was a neat fit for Leeds’ needs – a technically-sound, physically impressive centre-back who was used to operating on the right-hand side of a back three and has done so successfully at a high level for several seasons.
There may well be good reasons that the deal didn’t happen – perhaps Union weren’t as willing to sell as newspaper reports from Germany had suggested, perhaps the fee was higher than reported, perhaps personal terms were hard to agree. Signing Doekhi, specifically, was not the be all and end all. But signing a defender of some stripe was surely a necessity. Even an Axel Disasi might have done the trick.
Leeds decided to stick when they could have gently twisted this winter, and that’s a rather bold vote of confidence in their existing side given their depth options at present. It may well pay off, but they didn’t have to break the bank to give themselves a better chance of staying up – they just needed to find a budget-friendly defender to offer them some depth, perhaps a loan signing who could give them some options when rest and rotation are required.
As it stands, there won’t be much rest and rotation for players like Pascal Struijk and Joe Rodon over the next three months. Whether that comes back to bite Leeds remains to be seen, but right now their inaction in the transfer market seems hard to understand.
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