Leeds United may have a new Pablo Hernandez, but that’s not a good thing– Our View

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Leeds United have finally got their first win of the Premier League season, but that doesn’t mean that they’re completely out of the woods yet.

The Whites don’t look like the force they were last season, they hardly blew Watford away and if it weren’t for a controversial disallowed goal, they’d still be searching for their first victory of the campaign.

So, what’s the problem at Leeds? Well, a defensive injury crisis certainly hasn’t helped their cause, but in our view, one of their biggest issues is an over-reliance on one player.

Of course, we’re talking about Raphinha.

Time and time again this season, Raphinha has bailed Leeds out. The Brazilian is their top scorer by some way, and even when he’s not putting the ball in the net, he’s the one producing the moments of magic that unlock a defence.

Raphinha is undoubtedly a massive talent, he may be the best player Leeds have had for two decades, but this is a Marcelo Bielsa side, positive results need to come from a team effort rather than a one-man show.

We’ve seen this before at Leeds where one player is putting the team on his back, be it Ross McCormack, Chris Wood or Pablo Hernandez, but every single time, it comes at the expense of the team’s all-around success.

Look at Hernandez’s influence particularly under Thomas Christensen and Paul Heckingbottom, the Spaniard was the Whites’ main man and their best player, but that was a talented team that really should have done a lot better. After all, they had the likes of Luke Ayling, Kalvin Phillips, Stuart Dallas and Pontus Jansson, who are all now bona fide Premier League players.

Far too often this season it’s looked like Leeds have been using Raphinha as a sort of ‘get out of jail free card’ giving him the ball and hoping for some magic, and while he has been producing time after time, that isn’t what Bielsa’s Leeds should be about.

Raphinha looks like he could be Leeds’ new Hernandez, a player who can put the team on his back and produce when the chips are down, but that’s not a well you can go to time after time, especially not at Premier League level.