A look at the current issues with the system at Leeds United: Is there a pathway for young players?

Once Leeds United were awarded category 1 academy status and promotion to the Premier League, their attention turned towards investing heavily into the academy; particularly the under 23s. Leeds are a team that has a rich history of producing good young talent but are now are in a much better position to keep them at the club on their terms. In the summer of 2020 Leeds secured signings of a number of talented youngsters including Joe Gelhardt from Wigan, Sam Greenwood from Arsenal and Crysencio Summerville from Feyenoord. These signings helped the club win promotion from PL2 Division 2 to the top division in the country at under 23’s level. The investments didn’t stop there and the following summer they secured signings of Lewis Bate from Chelsea and Leo Hjelde from Celtic in the hope of bolstering both the first team squad and under 23’s. Leeds however have hit a point where the aforementioned players are ready to be playing first team football, whether that be at the club or elsewhere. Angus Kinnear commented during the January transfer window about the club not wanting to invest in first team signings due to  it blocking the pathway of the young players at the club, saying “This strategy clearly impacts our evaluation of transfer targets, where our analysis indicates that many January options, requiring an eight-figure investment, would not be a material improvement on the current performances of emerging players such as Bate, Hjelde and Joe Gelhardt. “Moreover, signing other options would block such youngsters’ development and would offer nowhere near the long-term potential.” His comments spark the question, is there a pathway at Leeds United for young players? 

The above graphs shows every Premier League team’s usage of players aged 23 and under so far this season. As you can see, Leeds and Norwich have used the most players with 13 each but the most important metric is the total amount of minutes. Leeds currently sit 7th in the league for total minutes with Arsenal leading the way, quite impressive for a side who are also doing well. For a side that is only in their second recent season in the premier league, managing to achieve above average in both metrics is pretty good going. However, when you consider that Leeds under Bielsa like to operate with a small squad, normally 15-18 senior players with the rest being made up by players from the 23’s and below, you may have expected Leeds to be higher up on this graph. Add that to the fact that Bielsa’s intense methods result in an awful lot of injures, questions need to be asked. The following chart shows a break down of the minutes per player in the Premier League and the percentage played.

Data from Fbref.com

It is worth mentioning that not all of these players will have been “available” to play every game due to injures, suspension or covid. The four players that have played the most minutes are all players who are now considered “senior” with them all being part of the first team set up for a number of years now. After these four players, you start to see one of the problems with the so-called “pathway”. Joe Gelhardt has only played 15.36% of minutes in the Premier League despite both Patrick Bamford and Rodrigo having spells out injured. You then have the rest of the players who have all barely played two 90s. When you take the following 13 players and look at how many minutes they have played for the under 23’s in PL2, the issues start to become clearer.

Data from Fbref.com

The same middle group Gelhardt, Hjelde, Cresswell, Drameh and Summerville have once again played less than 50% of the minutes available. Lewis Bate has played a good amount of minutes for a player who only joined in the summer with Sam Greenwood also racking up the minutes and would probably have played more if it wasn’t for injury. The four more senior players haven’t played much or, in Meslier’s case none at all, but that’s understandable given they’re now considered to be more senior players than emerging talent. This brings me nicely onto the current issues Leeds are facing when developing young players and the future issues that may occur. 

Firstly you can see that there are a number of players that are not playing enough minutes at either level. For young players they need to be playing full 90s, preferably at first team level, but even at PL2 level would be better than sitting on the bench. The ones that are considered to be on the cuffs of really cementing a place in Bielsa’s squad are the ones who only play 45 minutes and then get subbed to later join the first team. Whilst Leeds’ aim is to improve and develop players, the current system in place may well be doing the opposite. Getting a run of consistent game time at first team level all comes down to the pecking order, for example, Cody Drameh is considered 4th choice. He was behind Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas and Jamie Shackleton despite the latter two not being primarily right backs by trade. This of course led to Drameh asking to leave the club on loan, where he has since started every game for Cardiff City. Some positions are harder than others, Charlie Cresswell for example is behind 4 senior centre backs so the pathway currently isn’t as clear for him. Like Drameh, Joe Gelhardt can find himself extremely unlucky to have not played more first team minutes. In the 318 minutes he has played, he’s scored one goal and also won two penalties. It seems that Bielsa would rather play multiple players out of position rather than just give one of under 23’s a chance, after all, this is what they have been apparently brought into the club for. Hjelde had a great game against West Ham and then a week later was dropped, the message being sent out to the young players currently is that whether or not you perform, you are only going to play when Bielsa has no other choice. It might well be a case that Bielsa does not yet trust them or is trying to keep them out the firing line and manage their careers. Players like Gelhardt though, must feel like they can’t do much more to earn his trust. On the keeping out of the firing line, Roberts is a player who constantly gets abused every week, wrongly so, but is still being thrown into the team. It may also be a case that they simply aren’t good enough to make it at Leeds, which again is fine. Most players don’t make it at academy level but the club should be helping them by securing loans not just keeping them around for the sake of murderball every Wednesday. 

In the summer it may well be that others want to leave on loan to secure first team minutes. The problem with this however is, once you leave on loan, it is perceived by Bielsa that you no longer want to be at the club and it’s hard to come back from that. We can’t get to a point that some of these players are reaching their early 20’s and have only played a handful of games. This is one of the reasons why some players are taking ownership of their careers now while they still have time to have a successful career. When ever a young player has joined recently, they all have talked about there being a pathway at Leeds, that pathway is starting to become less and less clear and with that will come difficultly in selling it to future signings in the transfer windows to come. Young players across the country will talk and it only takes looking at the comments on an Instagram post to see players from clubs all over the country commenting with messages. Leeds don’t want to find themselves in a situation where they’re selling the club to a player and an agent only for them to both know that what they are selling doesn’t exist. One of the other issues that Leeds are running into is the effect it is having on results for the under 23’s. They very rarely get to field a side that has players playing in their own position and ones that can make a real difference at that level. Leeds now find themselves in a fight to stay up due to results not being good enough and games turning quickly because of the pre-planned subs that take place. Whilst the primary job of an under 23’s side is to develop players, with results coming second, being able to offer top level academy football is important for the future. 

Going back to the question at the start of the article, is there a pathway for young players at Leeds United? In man opinion, the answer is still unclear. Technically speaking, Leeds are one of the two sides to have played the highest number of young players and also given a healthy amount of minutes across the board. As we have seen though, when you break it down, it’s not a cut and dry as it seems. I would personally say there is a pathway, but one that is far from clear and one that is now running into the issues just mentioned. In the summer, there needs to be a rethink. Do Leeds allow more players to leave on loan and give them assurances that their time at Leeds isn’t finished by this? Does Bielsa (if he stays) reward the young players with starts after they perform well? Will Leeds look to build a squad that has a pecking order consisting of players who compete with others in their position, not just having certain players cover four or five positions? It is going to be an interesting summer, Leeds’ first priority however is looking to stay in both the Premier League and PL2 division one.

By Thomas Wilson