‘The club were confident’: Journalist makes January transfer window claim about Leeds

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Speaking on The Athletic Football Podcast, Phil Hay has shared how Leeds United felt at the end of the January transfer window.

The Whites have underperformed this season, but despite this, the Yorkshire club didn’t make a single signing in the January window.

However, despite the fact there were no additions from Leeds last month, the club were apparently confident at the end of the window that they would have enough in their squad to stay in the Premier League.

What’s been said?

Hay shared how the club felt about their January business.

“January was strange though because they signed absolutely nobody, and I was one of the people that thought they definitely needed to add a little to say the least. IN part because of their form and also because their injuries have been relentless this season. You have to ask if there will come a time this season where all of the injured players will be back, couple that with a small squad, which is the Bielsa way, and it’s left them short,” Hay said.

“The issue was in January was that they bid for Brenden Aaronson and they went up to £20m, but Salzburg didn’t want to sell him and weren’t willing to deal unless Leeds were willing to offer vastly over the odds. Leeds offered short-term options to Bielsa, van de Beek was one of them, Harry Winks another, although Bielsa said no to Winks in the summer window, so that wasn’t likely.

“In offering those options they found that Bielsa didn’t want them, and his feeling was that the squad he has will see him right and it will be fine. He was confident, and the club were confident as well at the end of the window, that they would stay up.”

Gamble

This is a gamble from Leeds.

Yes, they should have enough to finish at least 17^th, but if they do go down, that could be absolutely disastrous.

Staying in the Premier League is absolutely vital for United, and the fact that they’ve failed to add to their squad and strengthen their position is worrying.

This could very easily backfire, and if it does, there will be questions to answer at Elland Road.