Credit: Imago

James Barker

Sat 30 May 2026 9:10, UK

Sebastiaan Bornauw is a quality backup player for Leeds United, and those are worth their weight in Premier League gold.

Arriving from Wolfsburg last summer for a reported fee of £5.1million, Bornauw’s move to Elland Road came with little fanfare.

That was understandable though, as bigger deals were yet to come and the Belgian international had been a squad player for the Bundesliga side previously.

Supporters can sometimes forget, or perhaps not realise, that just because a player doesn’t become nor evolve into a star player or a regular name on the teamsheet, doesn’t mean they’ve been a bad signing.

It’s this problem that Bornauw may well encounter in West Yorkshire, as question marks linger over his future as a Leeds player ahead of this summer’s transfer window.

Sebastiaan Bornauw proved his worth to Leeds in 2025-26

Bornauw could be a possible Leeds transfer casualty over the coming weeks, as the 49ers Enterprises surely plot an ambitious summer of spending.

Daniel Farke and his players did some excellent work in 2025-26, comfortably securing their Premier League status as well as reaching an FA Cup semi-final, and now they’ll want to build on that.

As a result, that could see some fringe players left in the dust, and possibly shipped out in order to make room for fresh new arrivals in LS11, and Bornauw’s 12 Premier League appearances and 432 minutes played put him in that category.

However, Leeds would be wise to retain Bornauw, as when his services were required last season, the 27-year-old proved himself to be a steady and reliable player, and there’s significant value to being that.

Per FotMob, Bornauw ranked in the top 10 percentile of Premier League centre-backs for shots blocked per 90 with 1.25, whilst also placing in the leading 23.3 per cent for defensive contributions per game at 10.2 respectively.

The Belgian also registered a 55 per cent long ball accuracy rate, which ranked him in the top 6.7 per cent of his top-flight positional rivals last term.

He also stepped up and played well in the 1-0 win over Brighton in the penultimate league fixture, whilst also impressed against the likes of West Ham in the FA Cup, the 1-1 draw at Everton and in the 0-0 away at Liverpool respectively.

2025-26 was the year of the Leeds United backup

You never know when you will need to call on a backup player, and Leeds will thank their lucky stars they had plenty of those in Farke’s side last season.

When Lucas Perri didn’t look like the number one goalkeeper he was supposed to be, Karl Darlow stepped up.

Whenever there were injuries or gaps to plug in defence, James Justin was there to fill them.

Injuries in midfield to the likes of Anton Stach and Ilia Gruev? No problem, here’s Ao Tanaka and Sean Longstaff to pick up the slack.

And in attack, Lukas Nmecha was always ready to answer the call, averaging 0.50 goals per game in the league last year, and providing 10 total goal contributions in all competitions.

Bornauw was part of this backup revolution at Elland Road as well, and so whilst he may not be a starting centre-back for Leeds, that isn’t to say he can’t be one when they need him to be.