Opinion

Opinion: Phil Hay’s recent claim could prove telling in Leeds United’s pursuit of a midfielder

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Image for Opinion: Phil Hay’s recent claim could prove telling in Leeds United’s pursuit of a midfielder

Leeds United are definitely in need of signing a midfielder this summer, but recent developments might suggest otherwise.

We all know Marcelo Bielsa isn’t going to overhaul Leeds’ squad in order to bring improvement.

From day one, he’s instead used what he has had at his disposal and got more out of it than previous managers.

Kalvin Phillips, Stuart Dallas, Liam Cooper, Luke Ayling, and Jack Harrison (among others) have all shown their Premier League quality since.

However, there does come a point where Leeds will need to invest in areas of weakness to continue growing as a club.

Leeds’ midfield tinkering

Injuries have been a big issue for Bielsa this season.

All over the pitch, Leeds have picked up significant setbacks forcing the Leeds chief to reshuffle his side to accomodate.

However, the versatility of players in the squad have managed to make life a lot easier for El Loco.

One of the shining lights of this season, in that regard, has been Stuart Dallas.

Coming into the top flight as a winger-come-left-back, Dallas has been deployed more recently as a central midfielder.

This comes due to the lack of depth behind an out of sorts Mateusz Klich in the ranks, but Dallas is showing how reliable he can be.

He’s the Whites’ second-top scorer with seven goals (joint with Harrison) amazingly.

Despite that, how long can you lean on the influence of a player playing out of position?

Weighing up a signing

With all this in mind, you’d be hard-pressed to claim Leeds didn’t need another midfielder.

Certainly, we need someone who can play where Phillips does at the base of midfield, but also someone with quality that go play higher up in more of a box-to-box role.

Someone who possesses the qualities of, say, Adam Forshaw?

Forshaw has been out of action since September 2019 but a tidy appearance for the under-23s last week showed he’s very close to returning to contention.

A spell of nearly 19 months on the sidelines means that we shouldn’t be too hasty with putting all our eggs back in the Forshaw basket for that position.

However, Phil Hay’s latest revelation about Marcelo Bielsa’s preference might indicate Leeds could stick with the former Middlesbrough man:

They would have to think carefully about that because Forshaw is competition for Phillips and Bielsa has always rated him extremely highly.

It’s hard to deny Forshaw’s ability, and Bielsa’s strong faith in him outlines that.

With that, it’s certainly a massive boost to the squad to have him back, potentially fully fit for the next season. That doesn’t mean that we don’t need a creative midfielder in the summer.

Adding one more player to that mix won’t upset the fine balance when we look at competition for places, but it’ll surely boost it further.

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Leeds United season ticket holder since 2013/14, currently situated in the middle of the FA5 noise. From Pablo Hernandez to 5-1 drubbings, I've seen it all at Elland Road.