Peterborough United chairman Darragh MacAnthony has backed Leeds United to avoid making the same mistakes as last season this time around. The Whites remained in the Premier League by the skin of their teeth thanks to a final day victory at Brentford after a long campaign filled with difficulties.
Leeds’ squad was left short on several occasions throughout the season, with injuries to key players such as Patrick Bamford, Kalvin Phillips and Liam Cooper proving costly. But Leeds’ struggles was also down to their lack of signings in both transfer windows, with just Daniel James and Junior Firpo arriving in the summer, and no one coming in January.
That almost came back to bite Leeds, but they have already moved quickly to rectify those mistakes with Brenden Aaronson becoming signing number one last week. Speaking on the Hard Truth Podcast, MacAnthony is envisaging a busy window of incomings as Leeds look to avoid a repeat of last season.
GO HERE: Take our BIG post season survey after a dramatic season at Elland Road
He said: “In defence of Leeds, I will say this. When I said they would finish comfortably top half, I didn’t realise Bamford would miss most of the season. I didn’t realise Kalvin Phillips would be missing for half of the season and then Luke Ayling.
“When you look at the injuries, and as we know with Peterborough in the Championship, when you lose the spine of your team, quality players, there’s always going to be a problem. Then there was that Bielsa intensity, and not having those signings come in to help, obviously they got away with it and stayed up.
“I don’t expect that mistake to happen again, I think Orta’s a very proven guy. I think he’ll look at it and go Bielsa was probably a bit more difficult to buy players for. He’d be very much ‘I want him’, ‘I don’t want him’.
“Then you end up with no one and in that situation where you’ve got a teenaged striker coming in. They won’t be like that again, though I’m not sure about Jesse Marsch.
“But I know they’ll recruit well this summer and I’m not going to make my prediction of top half yet this time. But I hope they do well, I didn’t want Leeds going down.”
