Leeds United's definitive transfer answer from man not doing himself justice on Twitter

"New Yorker having fun with a ball in Europe," is how he describes himself on the bird app, but it's the fun he's been having without a ball that has endeared him most to Whites supporters since a £20m summer move from RB Leipzig.

Adams is employed chiefly as wrecking-ball in front of the back four by Jesse Marsch, a player who will swing this way and that, merrily crashing into opposition attacks and obliterating them before they can even get started. Leeds like a midfielder who can do that. They loved Kalvin Phillips for it, after Marcelo Bielsa turned him into a one-man defensive destruction crew in the 4-1-4-1 system that brought such success to Elland Road.

But even as Bielsa's lone wolf prowling around ahead of the back line, Phillips only ever had to record three tackles per 90 minutes at the absolute most. Adams is currently lining up four per 90 and his season-long tally of 44 puts him second in the Premier League. Even though his taste for defensive work was a big part of the reason why Marsch wanted to work with Adams for the third time in their careers, the 23-year-old is doing more of it than ever before. At Leipzig last season his tackles per 90 sat at 1.53.

Whether that's the demands of the role in Marsch's current system, the frenetic pin-ball nature of a Leeds game, the Premier League effect or some other factor at play, Adams' workload has increased, dramatically, off the ball, specifically in his own defensive third of the pitch. Happily, for him and for Leeds, he is rising to it. Adams is seventh in the Premier League for tackles won, with 22, and his two tackles won per 90 minutes isn't far off a career best.

He's an irritant, a waspish presser seemingly built to cover huge areas of the pitch and steal in annoyingly early to disrupt the opposition's period of possession. At Anfield on Saturday night with the clock showing 89 minutes and Liverpool desperate to get downfield to score the winner their fans and their season so badly needed, it was Adams darting forward to win the ball and keep it in the hosts' half of the pitch. He played it forward and left to Willy Gnonto, who duly went down the touchline and set up the winner Marsch, Leeds and 3,000 travelling Whites so badly needed.

But that pass, and much of Adams' work in possession during the famous 2-1 victory, showed the fun he can have with a ball in Europe. In fact one 30 second passage of play, that began about 90 seconds after kick-off, was evidence enough that Adams can be far, far more than an irritant for Leeds. He guided the ball forward to keep an attack flowing, steamed in to rob Fabinho as soon as that attack was halted, found space to give Rasmus Kristensen an option, checked his shoulders in time to see pressure coming, found Jack Harrison with a forward pass, got it back and fed Brenden Aaronson with another. It was breathtakingly simple football, done well and done in perpetual motion.

And as the rest of his Anfield body of work went on to demonstrate, Adams' forward thinking is key for Marsch, who wants to play quick, direct football. It's not simply a case of Adams winning back the football in order to give it to midfield partner Marc Roca, or back to Illan Meslier and the centre-backs. He wants to play it forwards. That's something Statsbomb say he's doing routinely and effectively this season in the Premier League, where he's fifth for line-breaking passes - those which dissect a pair of defenders or end up behind a line of them.

His one-touch stuff at Anfield was good, too, some of it was very clever, making him a link in the chain when he wasn't being the big heavy ball that smashed into Liverpool. Adams looked like a man enjoying his work, as he has on a significant number of occasions already in a season that has seen him complete 11 90 minutes and miss just one.

Those outings already feel adequate to answer, definitively, the question of whether or not Leeds got the right Red Bull midfielder in the summer. They did and he's having fun being a serious player, with and without a ball.