Tarik Muharemovic outlines Leeds United leadership role amid instant squad impact

Leeds United defender Tarik Muharemovic has always viewed himself as a potential captain - but insists current skipper Ethan Ampadu is doing an ‘amazing’ job.

Muharemovic only arrived in West Yorkshire four months ago but already feels like a hugely influential part of Daniel Farke’s squad. For a start, the 23-year-old has played every available minute across all competitions with only one other Leeds squad member on 12 games and 1,080 minutes.

That other squad member is club captain Ampadu, with the Welshman and his Bosnian teammate forming part of a rock-solid Leeds spine. The armband is on the midfielder but despite being a relatively new face, Muharemovic already looks to have taken on a leadership role while on the pitch.

“I was always captain at a young age, to be honest,” he told the Official Leeds United podcast. “Obviously I was not talking that much in my young age, but I was for sure always a guy who talked to the team. Like when we lost, I was a guy who maybe talked bad to the players, like, how can we lose?

“I always saw myself as a captain, like to be a captain. And to be honest, even if I'm not the captain, I like to talk from the back. I think as a defender, it's your job to talk to them, to talk to the whole team, because you see the whole pitch from the back.

“But to be honest, here we have Ethan Ampadu, who's doing the job, really amazing. So he's doing, for everyone, for us, I'm just doing in the games. But I think I had it from a young age.”

Muharemovic is one of several natural leaders in the Leeds squad but there is only one captain. Ampadu is into his third campaign with the armband on a permanent basis and many in West Yorkshire will hope there are a lot more to come from the 26-year-old.

“He makes our lives really easy,” Muharemovic said of his skipper. “I can only talk really good about him. Ethan Ampadu is an amazing person, an amazing guy. He was the first guy who came up to me when I arrived in America, when I arrived here.

“He just tries to be the best side of a captain, and he's really doing it well. Obviously on the pitch, you need someone like him. He's supporting us. Like let's say there's a harder foul, or you see it could maybe be a red for the opponents, he's the first guy who's going to talk to them.

“He always has your back, and that's what makes him special. The whole team is special, that everyone has someone's back. So he has my back, I have his back.”