Leeds United U23s dog fight has wider implications for vital summer transfer work

You won’t hear that opinion expressed anywhere around Elland Road ahead of the penultimate game of the season at Elland Road, even if the Under-23s squad is a vehicle and not a destination.

A huge amount of money, time and effort has gone into putting the academy side among England’s elite and, just like the first team, the 23s are desperate to end the season on a high, of sorts, by securing their top-flight status and ensuring that the class of 2022/23 get to test themselves against the very best next season. The higher calibre the opponent, the bigger the test, the better you get as a player, or so the thinking goes.

Learning to win and picking up the habit of picking up results go hand in hand with becoming an elite player, with the necessary mentality to match the required ability, so the scorelines in each of Leeds’ last two games will matter and the embarrassment of riches available to Friday’s visitors will be no excuse.

If you want to play with the ‘big boys’ you have to find ways to win, as Leeds did recently against Liverpool and Manchester United and Taylor will be sending out a team to do just that when Manchester City arrive.

If involved, Cresswell and any of the other more established 23s who can now point proudly to Premier League experience on their CVs, will be out to impress Jesse Marsch and what could be a near 20,000 crowd.

Leeds’ attempts to set a divisional attendance record will ensure the young Whites have all the support they need and an atmosphere and environment far closer to competitive Premier League football than its academy counterpart.

It’s often said that it takes a certain type of person to play for Leeds in that atmosphere, carrying that expectation and pressure, and Friday night will give Taylor’s team a strong dose of it all.

But, unlike the senior side, for whom the drop would subsequently pose serious question marks over just about everything and everyone at Leeds, Under-23s relegation would represent a huge disappointment and not the end of the world.

The ultimate aim of every player in the Under-23s side is not to play Premier League 2 football for the Under-23s side in front of 20,000 at Elland Road - it’s to play Premier League football for the first team in front of 36,000 at Elland Road.

At any level below professional men’s football at a club like Leeds, the betterment of young players and preparing them for life in the ‘big league’ is what matters most. Producing a team that stays in the PL2 top flight for the next half a dozen years without seeing numerous talents graduate to the first team would represent a disaster.

It just so happens, though, that being able to boast PL2 top-flight status is one of those boxes Leeds can tick in their efforts to attract the kind of talent who might be able to make it from the 23s to the senior side.

That will be part of the work this summer, not least because with a more distinct demarcation of 23s and first team since Marsch arrived, loan moves are expected to feature in the near futures of some of the current crop.

Victor Orta has a serious amount of recruitment to do at first-team level - there are several positions in which Leeds need to strengthen or add players more suited to Marsch’s system - and head of emerging talent Craig Dean has plenty on his plate too.

If you consider that Cresswell, Joe Gelhardt and one or two others should be enjoying more Premier League involvement next season, with a number of others finding senior football via the loan system or permanent departures, whoever is coaching the 23s will need more bodies.

The machine always needs feeding. And, when Dean is sitting down with youngsters, their agents and parents to make the sales pitch, nights like Friday will crop up.

Come and play at Leeds, in the PL2, in front of thousands, en route to Premier League football in front of tens of thousands. It’s a nice line and not one every club can throw out.

Attendance figures won’t be chief among the consideration of talented teens and their support networks, however. The clarity - to borrow from Marsch’s lexicon - of the pathway to the professional ranks will be.

At times this season, necessity - the injuries in a small senior squad - has cleared the way for the youngsters rather than their own exploits and ability. For some, like Crysencio Summerville, the result has been proximity to his goal rather than the goal itself and that in turn has left him shy of the minutes, at any level, that he wants and needs. A knock-on for the 23s as a whole has often been an absence of the older, better players and a very young side struggling to pick up enough points to avoid a relegation battle.

Right now though, just like their elders at Thorp Arch, they have survival within their grasp. The summer and next season’s pathway can look after themselves, and need to if the future is to be bright, but, right now, Friday night lights are all Taylor and his youngsters can see.