Leeds United ended up retaining the vast majority of players who were crucial to Championship promotion, with the 49ers able to keep the bulk of Daniel Farke’s side together.
Joe Rothwell and Manor Solomon’s loans ended, while Junior Firpo, Largie Ramazani, and Mateo Joseph were the only other Leeds United players to leave who had featured in more than 500 league minutes.
It means that Leeds have a degree of continuity, in spite of the 10 new additions into the first-team on top of that. Interestingly, players such as Leeds’ Dutch vice captain remained, despite concerns all summer regarding Pascal Struijk’s Leeds future.
Struijk then bossed the Leeds game against Everton although Daniel Farke was critical of Struijk against Arsenal, albeit indirectly post-match. He remained post-deadline, along with other assets like Willy Gnonto, too.
Graham Smyth questions the ‘optics’ of Leeds keeping Pascal Struijk
Reporters like Adam Pope raised concerns over Struijk’s future in recent months, while Beren Cross explained the Struijk PSR complexities as well, with the noise regarding his personal situation simply not going away all the way up until the deadline.
That’s because of the late window information that Villarreal were in the race to sign Struijk, with both Struijk and Willy Gnonto earmarked as PSR sales from the early periods of the summer window.
Graham Smyth has spoken via The Inside Elland Road podcast regarding that fact, stating: “I understand that they’re saying the most sellable players and the players who would bring the most PSR joy are those that nobody really wants to sell.
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“You know, [Ao] Tanaka because he was signed for pittance and could now be worth I don’t even want to put a number on it because because he’s absolutely fantastic.
“Jayden Bogle signed for £5 million. That is looking worse and worse for Sheffield United all the time, you know, particularly with the way he started this season. He started this season in the Premier League better than he started last season in the Championship.
“Players like that, Struijk is another, and Gnonto is another. The club would say nobody would be happy if we sold those players. I don’t know. In the case of Tanaka, yes, there’d probably be riots.
“Gnonto, yeah, people would probably be a bit unhappy with that. Struijk, I don’t know that the optics would be so bad on that. I would be a bit sad because I love watching Pascal Struijk play football particularly when the ball’s at his feet.
“I have concerns about him in the Premier League when it comes to the ball in behind him, particularly. I don’t know that people are so wedded to him that they would have gone mad had Leeds got a really good fee for him.
“But maybe the market wasn’t wasn’t there for him, you know? To turn down that kind of money and maybe he was on Farke’s list of five that he came armed with into the summer discussion to say please don’t sell these players.
“Maybe, maybe Pascal was among them. And the other point, I suppose, is that if you sell a Pascal to get a [Rodrigo] Muniz or a [Igor] Paixao or whatever, you still need to then go and get a centre-back.
“So you’re deep enough at centre-back, you know? It could just be that you couldn’t afford to get someone close to Pascal’s level and you’re getting filler really is what you’re getting.
“So, it’s not easy, but I don’t know that the plan to keep everyone or that the way it’s turned out that they’ve kept everyone is is is really the boast that they would think it is.”
Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images
Tony Dorigo thinks Struijk is ‘superb’, meanwhile Farke hailed Struijk a ‘colossus’ after the Everton game at Elland Road. The Leeds boss said: “I think he was outstanding, top performance, really like a colossus in the defence, won many, many headers.
“But Pascal was very good on the ball, good in the build-up, important, also aggressive in defending forward, [and showed] good leadership. He was an outstanding player for us in the last season and has proven his worth.”
“Of course, he’s a big leader also in the dressing room, but nowadays it’s not just up to one or two players, you need a core group who lead. Each and every player has to show responsibility, but of course, we have a good group of leaders.
“Some of them are sometimes not always playing or even always in the squad. I also think about our other defensive options, like Jaka Bijol or Sebastiaan Bornauw, who are top, top characters, although they were not involved, are so important in the dressing room.”
Leeds could grant Struijk fresh terms and a new contract but that performance against Everton reminded the fanbase of what he can look like at his best.