Speaking recently on the TIFO Football Podcast, The Athletic’s Leeds United correspondent, Phil Hay, discussed how much money the club will have to spend ahead of next season.
After a fantastic season for Leeds, in which the club blew away their Championship opposition, winning 28, drawing nine and losing nine of their league fixtures, scoring 77 goals and conceding just 35 and finishing top of the table by a whopping 10 points, Marcelo Bielsa’s side will be playing Premier League football for the first time in 16 years next season.
In order to ensure that the club gives themselves the best possible chance of ensuring that they remain a top-flight side come next summer, new players will have to come in, with the club being linked with the likes of Robin Koch, Rodrigo Moreno and many more.
This is a subject which Phil Hay recently discussed on the TIFO Football Podcast, with the journalist giving an insight as to how much he believes the club will be able to spend in order to bring new faces into the club, in which positions he thinks the side need to improve, and how he thinks the club will fare in their Premier League campaign.
He said: “Budget-wise, I think they’ll be falling into the bracket of £50-75 million in terms of the money that they’re going to put up for transfer fees, and I think they’re gonna have to stretch to that level to get the calibre of centre-back and centre-forward that they’re after.
“You’re right about survival, that goes without saying anytime a club goes up, I think probably more so with Leeds, given that this has been 16 years of waiting for promotion, and 16 hard years as well as.
“It’s been a very, very long, difficult and, in periods, very unhappy journey for them up until the Bielsa era. I think survival will be seen by them as an adequate benchmark, but probably a quite a low benchmark.”
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From Hay’s comments, then, it would appear that Leeds do have a considerable amount of money to spend on incoming transfers this summer, with the journalist believing that a centre-back and centre-forward are two of the most important positions in which the club needs to strengthen over the summer.
With it recently being reported that the club has agreed a deal with Valencia for striker Rodrigo Moreno, as well as other reports suggesting that the Whites are prepared to pay £20 million for Freiburg centre-back Robin Koch, a good deal of the £50-75 million that Hay mentioned may very soon be spent.