Injuries have been the major disruptor across Robin Koch’s two years with Leeds United, but with a World Cup on the horizon, he cannot afford for that trend to continue into the new season. The 25-year-old was given the plainest warning yet about his Qatar chances in the latest Germany squad.
Koch was left watching his country’s UEFA Nations League matches from afar and it will be clear to the defender what kind of fight he has on his hands to return to contention. It all starts with his Leeds form and there may be an opportunity emerging for him.
Anyone who watched the Whites regularly during the first three months of the 2020/21 Premier League season will remember Koch was a mainstay in central defence alongside captain Liam Cooper. The former Freiburg man rarely put a foot wrong and impressed until an awkward landing at Stamford Bridge exposed a knee injury he had been managing since the opening day at Anfield.
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The subsequent surgery on the knee problem would rule him out of a Leeds starting line-up until the away trip at Brighton & Hove Albion five months later. Koch would get through pre-season and put himself in a position to start the opening day of last term.
With Kalvin Phillips fit enough only for the bench, Koch would start as a defensive midfielder and face a torrid time in trying to keep Bruno Fernandes, who would score a hat-trick, quiet. That Old Trafford nightmare would be followed by another.
Marcelo Bielsa would report an initially small issue in Koch’s pubis area as something they expected to clear quickly. Koch would not start another match for four months.
The defender would play frequently from there on in. Between mid-December and the end of the campaign, Koch would only be absent from five starting line-ups. He proved to be someone Bielsa and Jesse Marsch trusted as a centre-back, holding midfielder or even right-back.
With no post-season international commitments, Koch has been among the first tranche of returners to West Yorkshire for pre-season. Diego Llorente and Cooper played for Spain and Scotland respectively and should be back next week.
Llorente was not without problems down the second-half stretch of last season and found himself under the microscope for some of the errors he made in the backline. If Koch can begin pre-season well and build some momentum, he may be able to make that right-hand slot by Cooper his own in a back four as he did in 2020.
At 25, with two years still to run on his contract, a strong start to the new season will surely open the door to contract negotiations on a deal that gives Leeds the peak years of his career.
In August, Cooper will turn 31 and Llorente will turn 29. It is easy to forget how much younger Koch is and as Cooper enters the final chapter of his career, the German may have that opening to become a long-term custodian in Elland Road’s backline.
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