‘Insanity’, ‘Bonkers’, ‘Weird’ – Many Leeds fans baffled by Phil Hay’s Bielsa transfer update
Leeds United fans are baffled by Marcelo Bielsa’s stance that he only needs to sign one new centre-back this summer.
Phil Hay wrote on The Athletic website this week that Leeds have been in contact with Brighton about a deal for Ben White now that White’s loan deal at Elland Road has expired.
White has gone and while Gaetano Berardi could be offered a new contract, he is likely to miss six to nine months of action with an ACL injury.
Hay said: “From what I hear, Bielsa only wants one centre-back (White, ideally) despite Berardi’s injury.”
It’s a bold strategy by Bielsa, who is a fan of having a small, closely-knit squad of senior players to manage throughout a season.
But, let’s say White does come back to Leeds, Bielsa will head into the Premier League season with Liam Cooper and White as his only two available centre-backs.
Sure, Luke Ayling can play there but he has to be United’s first-choice right-back next season after how well he did in the Championship.
And then there are the likes of Pascal Struijk and Oliver Casey who are good, young players but lack a lot of experience and might be overwhelmed by coming up against some of the best attacking players in the world in the Premier League.
It seems risky for Bielsa to take this stance and a lot of Leeds fans on Twitter cannot understand why the Argentine wouldn’t want to sign add two centre-backs to his squad in time for next season kicking off.
Here is a selection of their tweets:
We totally understand why fans would worry but there were also a lot of worries last summer when White was brought in to replace the battle-hardened Pontus Jansson.
If Bielsa is confident in his players then we don’t see why this won’t be a transfer masterstroke because it saves him money to potentially invest in other areas of the squad.
In other Leeds United news, this Manchester City centre-back could be on Leeds’ mind this summer.