Who To Pick From Leeds

Drafting from Leeds

Leeds sit seventeenth on 78 with twenty-five names, and the oddity of the squad is right at the front of it: two of the top five are goalkeepers. James Trafford at 83 is the lone elite man and Lucas Perri at 79 is the second-best player at the club, which means the best department here, goalkeeping at 81 across two, is the one department you can only use once. Whatever you pay for that strength, you are getting a single shirt out of it.

Behind the pair the squad is flat in a useful way. Jaka Bijol, Ethan Ampadu and Anton Stach all sit on 78, covering centre-back, holding midfield and centre midfield between them, and the weakest group is right-back at 75 across two, which is a soft spot rather than a hole. A spread of six is a long way short of Liverpool's twelve, so nothing here collapses. The trade-off is plain: no peak worth chasing beyond Trafford, but very little you would be embarrassed to field. Six Englishmen lead the nationality list with four Welshmen behind them, Ampadu among that four, which is a thicker Welsh presence than a squad of this size usually carries.

The legends are flatter still, all four of them level on 92, which is unusual and helpful: the choice is purely positional, so take the one that mends something. Lucas Radebe is the answer at centre-back, fourteen above Bijol and a full division above anything Leeds can field in defence. Note too that not one of the four is a goalkeeper, which is precisely the position Leeds least need helping. Draft Radebe, keep Trafford, spend nothing on Perri, and the spine is suddenly respectable.