Leeds United journalist Phil Hay appeared on the latest edition of The Lockdown Tactics podcast to discuss the Whites.
The club recently ended their 16-year absence from England’s top flight as they finished the 2019/20 season as champions of England’s second tier, securing themselves a place in the Premier League for the 2020/21 campaign.
During this recent edition of The Lockdown Tactics, Hay spent some time talking about Leeds captain Liam Cooper and shared his thoughts on how the 28-year-old centre-back will fare in the Premier League next season.
The journalist said: “I think Cooper will do okay. He probably fell into that category of players that people were unconvinced about or uncertain about when [Marcelo] Bielsa first came in, but like so many of them, he’s improved massively.
“His passing is so much better, his reading of the game is so much better, the defensive mistakes have dwindled down to a small number and I think, beyond that, he’s been a fine, fine captain. He really has been [a] fantastic captain in the background and has done a lot to keep this squad as neat and as tight as it is.”
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During the 2019/20 season, Cooper, who is now valued at £4.95 million (as per Transfermarkt), earned an impressive overall rating of 7.11/10 from his 38 appearances in England’s second tier, according to WhoScored, making him the Whites’ fourth-highest-rated player in the league for their successful title-winning season.
As per WhoScored, the Scottish defender made the second-highest number of interceptions (1.8), the highest number of clearances (3.0) and completed the fourth-highest number of long balls (4.1) per game of any Leeds United player to have started at least one Championship game for the Whites during the 2019/20 season.
With that in mind, it may be fair to say that Cooper was one of Leeds’ best performers during the most recent Championship campaign and it mightn’t be too surprising to see that Hay thinks the 28-year-old ‘will do okay’ in the top flight.