Leeds United's perfect response to 12-year joke as deadline day chaos engulfs rivals - Kyle Newbould's transfer window verdict
The Verdict on Leeds United’s summer transfer window and a deadline day in which they were calm amongst the chaos.
‘Don’t go to bed just yet’ Leeds United posted on X at half-past midnight. We’ve seen that before, but not in French.
For weeks Daniel Farke has vowed that himself and other key decision-makers will ‘stay awake’ in the transfer market and their deadline day business went right to the wire. But as chaos ensued across the Premier League, a measured approach paid off with two late arrivals to cap off a near-perfect window.
Summer 2026 was always likely to be quieter than post-promotion 12 months ago, when Leeds welcomed 10 new first-team faces through the door and expenditure topped £100million. It was the window of physicality and experience - so much so that it almost felt like the recruitment team had forgotten to change their scouting filters from 6ft-plus and 26-years-old.
The bar was higher this summer, something chairman Paraag Marathe admitted when speaking to the YEP and other local media in June. ‘Fewer but more high quality’ was his description of what to expect when it came to new signings and Leeds can look back on their window knowing real quality was added.
Two games into the new Premier League season, the feeling is Leeds have upgraded in three positions across Farke’s starting-XI. The biggest is arguably in the most important position too, with a club-record £40million spent on goalkeeper James Trafford who feels like a long-term fix for a long-term problem at Elland Road.
Equally, Leeds came out of a difficult situation surrounding Pascal Struijk with another potential upgrade. His desire to seek a fresh challenge left no decision but to sell but despite left-footed centre-backs being notoriously hard to source, he was swiftly replaced by £34.1m Bosnian Tarik Muharemovic.
Like Trafford, Muharemovic has settled into life at Leeds with consummate ease. There has been next-to-no -mention of missing Struijk - by no means a dismissal of the Dutchman’s quality but credit to the 23-year-old replacing him for his first taste of Premier League football.
Sebastiaan Bornauw’s wish to leave also threw out a curveball but again, he was out and Nico Elvedi was in. He’s looked excellent. Harry Wilson hasn’t hit his Fulham hot-streak yet but there is every confidence he will make a significant contribution with goals and assists. Michael Zetterer looks an experienced and steady back-up goalkeeper option.
And so Leeds went into deadline day with good business done but important business missing. They needed left-footed defensive cover, be it at full-back or centre-back. They wanted a top-quality left-sided attacker, ideally with potential to grow. They wouldn’t have said no to another striker.
Melvin Bard joined on loan from OGC Nice to tick off the defensive need, his ability to play at full-back or on the left of a back-three ideal. A €1m loan fee and €5m option is about as low-risk as it gets for a Premier League team. But for a while that looked like being it, with the expectation being Willy Gnonto would be recalled from a prospective move to Fiorentina.
Leeds went quiet as chaos ensued across the Premier League. Malick Fofana was going to Sunderland, then Crystal Palace, then Sunderland again. Then he was doing a medical in France without knowing which team would use the results. He eventually picked Sunderland. Palace submitted three deal sheets.
Everton manager David Moyes complained of his squad being light before a deadline day in which the Toffees lost four - star winger Iliman Ndiaye included - and signed two. They agreed a £40m deal for Monaco striker Folarin Balogun, had concerns over his medical, renegotiated the deal and were then rejected by the American on second thought.
Chelsea sold Enzo Fernandez to Manchester City for £125m and had £47m Lamine Camara lined up as his replacement. But Monaco pulled out of a deal late on to prioritise selling Balogun. That fell through but their failure to submit a deal sheet meant Camara couldn’t move to Stamford Bridge either. Chelsea were fuming.
Leeds swoop amid deadline day chaos elsewhere
Leeds picked their moment, swooping in late for Eintracht Frankfurt’s rapid left-winger Jean-Matteo Bahoya. A 21-year-old French youth international, he was the kind of high-ceiling, room-to-improve wide attacker they’d been searching for. Better still, a deal was agreed that kept the Whites from forking out too much money right now.
They paid a €2m loan fee while also agreeing to a €23m option plus €5m of add-ons. Bahoya underwent medical tests and a deal sheet was submitted. At 12.34am Leeds posted on X, translated from French: “Don't go to bed right away... there's still some work to be done”.
No it’s not in 2014 again. Matt Smith wasn’t heading to Fulham and Dom Poleon wasn’t going anywhere either. Instead they confirmed the signing of Bahoya on loan, their seventh and final arrival of a near-perfect summer. The greedy might have also wanted another striker but Farke himself made a point ahead of Brentford last weekend that it’s rare for clubs to have more than two out-and-out senior No.9s in their squad.
He and Marathe have also both stressed that the new Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) had tightened the purse-strings a little in the short-term and an inflated market will have made things difficult. Liam Delap’s £50m move to Nottingham Forest is an example of the kind of sum that would have been needed, were a top-level No.9 to be sought. So too was £40m for Balogun, until it fell through.
The only question heading into the new season is what if? What if Calvert-Lewin’s impressive run of fitness comes to an end? What if he and Lukas Nmecha, both so readily-available for much of last season but with lengthy injury histories, pick up an issue at the same time. Leeds will say those ‘what ifs’ were asked 12 months ago and answered emphatically. They’d be right.
But football can throw up issues in the blink of an eye, like a hamstring injury for a centre-back who had been virtually ever-present across three years under Farke. Leeds, like they did last year, will back their medical staff to continue the great work that kept Calvert-Lewin fit all last season and Nmecha available for plenty of it.
There is also a lot to be said for consistency. They’ve lost just two of last season’s first-team regulars in Karl Darlow and Struijk while potentially upgrading on both. Fringe players have gone but the core of what made Leeds so successful last season has remained with barely a flicker of exit speculation. It’s also been improved upon in those key areas.
Now it’s time for actual football again, and so far this season Leeds have been very good at that too. They didn’t look like a team in desperate need of reinforcements against Nottingham Forest and took an impressive point from a Brentford side many are tipping as good bets for Europe.
Brighton will provide another stern test of the mettle on Saturday but Leeds have shown their strength already. And that is where this season will be judged as a success or a failure. On the pitch. It’s early days but so far it’s been a success.