Speaking after the release of the fixtures for this upcoming season, Leeds United’s Managing Director Angus Kinnear talked about the current state of the team, as well as touching on last season and how close we were to finally fulfilling the dream of being promoted.
“We’re very confident in the squad we’ve got,” Kinnear said. “They came very close. We believe they deserved to go up, so we have absolute confidence in the squad, but as always we’re looking for opportunities to strengthen. If those opportunities come along, we’ll take them”.
To me, those words send only one message. ‘Don’t think we’re going to be making many or even any signings at all this summer’.
There’s no smoke without fire here either. Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that the majority of transfer rumours this summer have surrounded wingers? Ryan Kent, Harry Wilson, Ovie Ejaria, Liam McCarron and Callum O’Dowda. Doesn’t that say something to you?
He can’t afford to look at improving anywhere else. The budget is so slim that we can only improve one bit of the squad at a time. The majority of those links are for loans, but even when the club does get round to offering money for a player, like with McCarron’s transfer, it’s only rumoured to be around £250,000, so they aren’t going to spend any money that they don’t feel they have to.
I spoke recently about how Leeds didn’t need to make any signings, as we’ll be just fine now that Marcelo Bielsa has seen the Championship and can make some adjustments to his style of play, and not take games against the likes of Ipswich and Wigan as lightly after they cost us valuable points.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make signings along the way, as well. Every team has to sign players to factor in for injuries, cup competitions and just general rotation. In this division, you have to go for broke; you can’t afford to stand still. And after raising expectations so much last season by bringing in a top name like Bielsa, and jumping from 13th to 3rd in one season, fans will be expecting Kinnear and co. get the club over the line.
He may not like it, but the club might have to dig deep into their pockets to make it happen, and if they do, we’ll be rewarded with that big slice of Premier League money on the other side.