Daniel Farke’s Leeds United crew are dropping like flies. First it was Dan James, then our new (chronically injured) winger Manor Solomon’s again harm became a hamstring downside. Ethan Ampadu is out for ten weeks and Ilia Gruev hobbled off on Tuesday night time, with Leeds since confirming Gruev has suffered a ‘significant’ harm to his meniscus and ‘will require an extended period of rehabilitation’. Great. Max Wöber is injured too, if anybody’s .
Farke has been requested if he may flip to the free agent market to choose up a short lived resolution or two, simply to get us by to January in order that Angus Kinnear can bump our B+ switch enterprise as much as an A grade. Unsurprisingly, Farke isn’t eager on the concept as a result of it’s pricey and the kind of participant out there for nothing in early October in all probability isn’t one that may make a lot impression.
It hasn’t stopped individuals suggesting potential signings on-line, nor has it stopped sure media shops who may need began a listing of free agent defenders with Sergio Ramos and ended it with Paul Dummett. Now we all know that we’re positively not signing Joel Matip, right here’s a couple of free brokers we positively shouldn’t signal
VURNON ANITA
Arriving at Leeds in 2017 with a powerful CV — 100+ video games at each Ajax and Newcastle — Anita was a midfielder who might ‘play’ at each left and proper full-back. What Leeds bought was a left-back so unhealthy that we purchased Laurens De Bock to switch him. After Patrick Bamford scored a hat-trick for Middlesbrough whereas being marked by Anita, Moxco’s match report described our left-back conundrum completely:
Choosing between Anita and De Bock [is] like deciding which feather duster we’re going to take right into a knife struggle.
Anita wore the no.8 jersey at Leeds and whereas we didn’t anticipate Johnny Giles, I’ve all the time felt a bitterness in direction of him for being the one Ajax midfielder of the previous 20 years who couldn’t play soccer.
He left Leeds for Willem II on mortgage in 2018 after which performed for CSKA Sofia and RKC Waalwijk earlier than becoming a member of Al-Orobah of Saudi Arabia’s second tier in July 2023. He achieved promotion at Al-Orobah, enjoying 33 instances earlier than being launched in July, presumably to permit the membership to adjust to the international participant restrict, with illustrious names like Kurt Zouma, Jean-Michel Seri and Johann Berg Gudmundsson there in Anita’s place. At 35, he’s in all probability not price a punt. He wasn’t at 27, to be honest.
OUASIM BOUY
It’s only a reduction that Bouy isn’t nonetheless contracted to Leeds. He arrived in West Yorkshire throughout Victor Orta’s first summer season at Leeds in 2017, together with Anita and a band of different rejects. I’m undecided he ever truly existed, however he did spend 4 years beneath contract and was farmed out on mortgage for nearly two years of that point, first going to Cultural Leonesa after which PEC Zwolle.
He’s performed a grand whole of 112 senior skilled matches in a 16-year profession. None of these video games have been performed in the white of Leeds United. Bouy turned a free agent in July 2022, having been launched by Al-Kharaitiyat SC (the place he turned bezzies with neighbour Pierre-Michel Lasogga, at the very least in our imaginations) after their relegation to Qatar’s second tier. The solely document I can discover of him enjoying there's a full ninety minutes in a relegation pla-yoff tie that they misplaced in March 2022.
We positively shouldn’t signal Bouy as a result of he couldn’t break into our crew in 4 years on the membership, so I’m undecided he’s precisely the kind of impression participant that we’re searching for proper now.
GBOLY ARIYIBI
Who? A former Leeds United midfielder whose profession has taken him to Greece, Turkey and Motherwell.
Right earlier than GFH saddled the membership with Jimmy Kebe and Cameron Stewart as parting presents, they signed Ariyibi after a profitable trial interval. Leeds supervisor Brian McDermott stated: “[He’s] an exciting player, very, very quick. He’s a great lad too.” A ringing endorsement.
Injuries restricted him to 2 appearances in his early months on the membership. I hope he was injured anyway, as a result of it will take a severe lack of expertise as a winger to have been disregarded of a crew that didn’t have any wingers. He joined Tranmere in March 2014 and spent the remainder of the season there, earlier than leaving completely to Chesterfield, the place he performed 96 video games in three years.
Nottingham Forest signed him in summer season 2017 and despatched him out on mortgage for 3 seasons, the final of which was at Motherwell. After 4 months in the far east of Glasgow, he set off for the Mediterranean. First, Panetolikos in Greece, earlier than three years in Turkey.
After his European expertise, is it time to convey him again to Beeston and decide up the place we left off a decade in the past? No. It isn’t.
LEE PELTIER
An authorized Grizzled Champo Bastard. Get him in, I’m offered. Only joking. I all the time disliked Peltier, not as a result of I keep in mind him being significantly unhealthy for Leeds, nor was he as objectionable as different players, however he simply jogs my memory of Neil Warnock.
He performed in the Premier League for Cardiff, which simply doesn’t appear honest. 500+ video games in English league soccer throughout ten golf equipment, the final of which was Rotherham. It seems like the top of the street at 37 and I’m not simply saying that as a result of that’s the place Luciano Becchio’s profession went to die. However, if we’re actually caught, an skilled right-back might permit us to carry out a reverse Archie Gray on Jayden Bogle. He can’t defend, so why not stick him in central midfield? Sorry, Jayden, that was pointless.
Signing Peltier would danger summoning Warnock like some kind of Leeds United Beetlejuice. No thanks.
GIUSEPPE BELLUSCI
Everyone’s favorite Leeds centre-back of the late 2010s is on the market, having been launched by Ascoli after the relegation from Italy’s Serie B. Though some followers have pined for him as somebody who ‘got it’, he could be remembered at Ascoli for making a ‘keep talking’ gesture in direction of the membership’s ultras after his purpose towards Lecco in March.
He requested for forgiveness from the followers and the ultras responded on everybody’s behalf to say, and I’m paraphrasing right here, “We’ll forgive you if we don’t get relegated.” Ascoli received two of their final eight video games and went down on the ultimate day, at which level Bellusci was launched.
So, should we signal him and swap to a again three? Good God, no. Not solely as a result of he’s a little bit of a prick, and Sol Bamba hated him, however as a result of I noticed him play final 12 months and he was given the run round by Caleb Ekuban.
CAMERON BORTHWICK-JACKSON
Can I curiosity you in a left-back not too long ago launched by a Polish membership? No, it’s not Barry Douglas. Sorry. It’s CBJ, one of many worst defenders I’ve ever seen play for Leeds. And I’ve seen Paul Connolly and Fede Bessone.
Borthwick-Jackson is a reputation that's typically forgotten amongst Victor Orta’s first-season insanity. Signed as ‘competition’ in a defence that contained massive names like Anita, Matthew Pennington and Conor Shaughnessy, he managed to attain just one Championship look and a handful of cup video games.
Perhaps I’m rewriting historical past in my very own head, however I made a decision that CBJ was launched again to Manchester United by the membership after the Newport County sport out of mercy for him. Should we signal him? Well, we’ve already bought Largie Ramazani and Joe Rothwell filling our ex-Scum quota, so let’s depart it there, eh?
JEAN-KEVIN AUGUSTIN
Time to get worth for cash. We’ve already misplaced in courtroom, having to pay nearly £20m to Red Bull Leipzig after making an attempt to dodge signing him in summer season 2020 after Leeds have been promoted. Poor JKA. He got here to Leeds as a sizzling prospect, the subsequent Olivier Giroud, and left because the second coming of Billy Paynter, simply with out the bus.
He spent two years on mortgage at Nantes, enjoying solely eleven instances whereas complaining of the effects of long COVID. Augustin joined Basel in the summer season of 2022, an honest transfer for somebody who had barely kicked a ball in three years. He spent the final two seasons there, enjoying 43 instances and scoring eight targets. It appeared like he’d reinvigorated himself considerably, however he struggled with accidents final season and misplaced his quantity 10 shirt to Xherdan Shaqiri in August, two weeks earlier than Basel launched him.
Perhaps JKA could possibly be the quantity 10 that Leeds craved, and he might have his shirt again if he asks Joel Piroe properly. He wouldn’t need to run ten miles a minute like Marcelo Bielsa needed him to and will merely simply fart round and take pot pictures or play some fancy passes.
Brenden Aaronson is having his redemption second now. Why can’t Big Kev… ⬢
