Despite losing players like Crysencio Summerville in the summer, former Leeds United and Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has stated that he believes Daniel Farke’s team deserves a top-two finish in the Championship.
Leeds is still in the running for automatic promotion positions even if they were defeated by Bristol City’s defense on Saturday.
They managed to hold onto third place in the league with the 0-0 draw at Ashton Gate. They trail table leaders Sunderland by five points, but have the same number of points as Burnley, who are in second place.
Even though there is still a lot of football to play, this is the time of year when the league begins to take shape, and Leeds is currently in a position they would have like to be in at the beginning of the season.
When the Whites lost players valued at over £100 million in the summer, there were worries. Compared to the team they fielded the previous season, Leeds’ squad was lacking in talent as Archie Gray, Summerville, and Georginio Rutter all left to join Premier League teams.
They are now in a far better situation in terms of their playing staff than they were a few weeks ago after action was taken and players were brought in the summer transfer window shut.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink: Leeds’ team is guaranteed to be promoted.
Hasselbaink, who played at Elland Road in the late 1990s, believes that the team Farke has to work with is more than capable of accomplishing what they were unable to do the previous season: placing in the top two of the Championship, despite the significant losses in the summer.
Despite losing several players in the transfer market, such as Crysencio Summerville, Leeds should aim for automatic promotion this season with their current roster, he stated via Leeds Live.
“They’ve had enough, and I believe that right now they’re simply lacking that consistency. They should have enough to place in the top two after discovering that.
In remarks following his team’s tie with the Robins, the Leeds manager acknowledged this sporadic decline in performance. They had numerous excellent opportunities to start the game with a goal, but they were unable to do so because of the hosts’ excellent defensive play and poor finishing.
“We always play to win, rather than avoid losing, and we did more than enough to win this game,” stated Farke. However, we weren’t playing at our best and wasted time in front of the goal. Although we had a lot of nice scoring opportunities, it was a very strong away performance.
Having one would have made things easier, and I have no doubt that more would have come. However, we show Bristol City who have started the season well and are a very good side.
“There is frustration over not getting all three points. But it’s my belief that the best defence in a division always wins promotion, so I am delighted with a rock-solid performance.”
Recent acquisitions could be crucial to Leeds’ chances of promotion. Many important Whites players, including Ethan Ampadu, Ilia Gruev, and Largie Ramazani, have recently sustained injuries, forcing individuals who weren’t originally expected to start in Farke’s squad to fill in. Manor Solomon has had difficulty since returning from injury, while Ao Tanaka and Joe Rothwell have shown promise thus far. in order to give themselves the best chance of obtaining that elusive promotion, players like Tanaka, Rothwell, and Solomon, as well as recent free agent Joshua Guilavogui, must make sure Leeds are in a strong position when they return, as Ampadu and Gruev aren’t anticipated to return until after the new year and Ramazani’s best case scenario is an end-of-November return.