Leeds United insider Phil Hay has provided an update on what the club’s transfer plans are for this summer.
Marcelo Bielsa’s men, despite spending close to £100m in the transfer window last summer following their promotion, but that figure is somewhat misleading in terms of the number of players they brought in. Especially when you consider the likes of Illan Meslier and Helder Costa merely had their loan deals made permanent, with Rodrigo, Diego Llorente, Raphinha and Robin Koch the only real ‘additions’ to the side.
And speaking on the latest edition of the Ask Ornstein podcast (6:16), Hay informed fans that he believed Leeds would adopt the same method once again, keeping as much of the core of the squad together as possible, and just making the odd tweak:
“The key thing for them last year, and the same rules will apply this time round, particularly if Bielsa does stay, was to keep this core the squad that played under him because they understood his methods and they’d adapted to his methods and they’d adapted to them very, very well… They will try to do the same this summer, I think somewhere in three to five signings is probably about right.”
Should Leeds spend heavily in the summer?
Yes
No
TIF Thoughts on Phil Hay’s comments on Leeds United’s spending this summer
Given Bielsa’s somewhat unique methods when it comes to training, as well as his style of play, this is probably the right method for Leeds to go down this summer.
They’ve already had a fantastic season in embedding themselves in the Premier League, and they don’t want to disrupt that by adding too many players, especially given the demands that the players are put under and the time it would take them to get used to things. Better make just three or four new players go through it than seven or eight and have that knock-on effect passed onto performances on the pitch whilst they get used to things.
In other news: ‘Crazy, this’, ‘Radrizzani out of jail’ – Many Leeds fans stunned by Phil Hay’s tweet