Leeds United have a striker issue, there’s no skirting around it.
Patrick Bamford is perennially injured and hasn’t scored this season, Joe Gelhardt is inexperienced, while the same can be said about Wilfried Gnonto.
There’s a reason Leeds were desperately trying to sign the likes of Charles De Ketelaere and Bamba Dieng in the summer, but perhaps they wouldn’t be in such a mess if they hadn’t sold one player back in 2021.
Indeed, once upon a time, Leeds had a promising young striker by the name of Rafa Mujica, but they let him go before he ever even had the chance to make his debut for the Whites.
Mujica arrived with a lot of hype surrounding him. He’d come from Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy, and he’d even made the first-team’s matchday squad as a teenager.
Sadly though, he was never handed a chance at Leeds, being sent on numerous loan spells, before being sold last winter to Las Palmas for an undisclosed fee.
After 18 months with Las Palmas, the chance to move to Portugal’s first division with FC Arouca presented itself to Mujica, and he jumped at the opportunity this summer.
This would be Mujica’s first chance to play first-division football in one of Europe’s top leagues, and it’s fair to say that he’s taken the bull by the horns over in Portugal.
In seven appearances so far, he has three goals, while he’s also been named as WhoScored’s Star Man on two occasions – not bad at all for a team struggling at the bottom end of that league.
Mujica is mixing it up with some of the most highly-rated young players in Europe. He has as many goals as Marcus Edwards this season in fewer minutes, while he’s actually responsible for 50% of his team’s goals so far this season in the league.
Perhaps Leeds gave up on this youngster too soon, because right now, he’s looking like one of the brighter prospects over in Portugal.
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