Who To Pick From Leeds

Drafting from Leeds

Leeds sit seventeenth on 78 with 25 names, and the whole squad is shaped by one man standing in the least convenient position on the pitch. James Trafford at 83 is the only player at the club rated 82 or above, so the elite tier here is exactly 1 player deep and he is a goalkeeper. Take him and you have bought the best thing Leeds own and filled exactly one shirt with it. There is no cheaper route into the same job either: Alex Cairns and Michael Zetterer sit on 69, the lowest rating in the squad, so in goal it is Trafford or it is nothing.

Behind him the squad flattens out, and flat is not the same as bad. Jaka Bijol at 78 in the middle of defence, Ethan Ampadu at 78 in front of it, Anton Stach at 78 in central midfield and Harry Wilson at 78 on the right wing, four men on one number covering four different jobs, so whatever gap the wheel leaves you, Leeds have a passable answer to it. The best-XI spread is 6, a long way short of Liverpool's 12, which is the honest summary of the club: nothing here collapses and nothing here carries you. The thin ground is the back line, where Joe Rodon at 77 is the second centre-back and the quality falls away sharply behind him.

Depth is where Leeds pay you back on a long wheel. The nationality list is headed by 7 Englishmen, with four Welshmen behind them, Rodon and Ampadu alongside Daniel James and Harry Wilson, a thicker Welsh bloc than a squad this size usually carries and worth knowing if your league runs a nationality rule. The mid-round value sits in the 77s: Dominic Calvert-Lewin up front, Gabriel Gudmundsson at left-back, Ao Tanaka in central midfield. None of them wins you a week. All of them stop you losing one.

The legend pool has the opposite problem, too many equals. Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Gary McAllister, Lucas Radebe, Raphinha and Tony Yeboah all sit level on 92, so the pick is purely positional: take the one that mends something. Radebe is that one, because the centre of defence tops out at Bijol's 78 and a 92 there rebuilds a back line rather than decorating it. The legend to leave on the board is Nigel Martyn at 91. He is a goalkeeper, and goalkeeper is the one position Leeds already have covered.