Thirty-four Premier League matches have been played by Leeds United in 2022. Tyler Adams played in 13 of them and was still voted Fans’ Footballer of the Year.
As impacts go, that’s quite the statistic. There will surely be some recency bias given the votes for the year-long award were only made in the last few weeks, but it underlines the rapid rise of the American at Elland Road.
Adams had arrived in the summer quickly after Kalvin Phillips’s sale was processed to Manchester City. He wasn’t billed as the replacement or as the next Phillips, but it’s hard to avoid the correlation when you see where Adams now plays.
READ MORE: Tyler Adams snatches Leeds United supporters' Footballer of the Year by one vote after four months
It was not an insignificant transfer fee either. RB Leipzig needed more than £20m to part ways with Adams, so it wasn’t like the comparatively smaller fees needed for Rasmus Kristensen or Marc Roca.
And yet Adams had only played in Major League Soccer before doing barely enough in Germany to register on the general public’s radar in the UK. There was not much fanfare and all of the hope was pinned on his relationship and history with Jesse Marsch.
The head coach is effectively Adams’s father figure in the sport. Marsch gave him his debut before watching him flourish from afar and then reuniting for a short time at Leipzig.
The number 12’s been so much more than that. Adams has been a revelation in the middle of the park. His consistency has been the big driver. Even in the off days for the team he has rarely been lower than a seven out of 10.
The anticipation of danger has been eye-catching. Adams always seems to know where he needs to be, and when, to kill off opposition attacks. His tackling ability has shone too.
Up until the headloss of his double-yellow at Tottenham Hotspur, the combative midfielder had just two cautions all season. One of those was for a foul on the opening day of the campaign and the other because he was within 10 yards of an Everton free-kick.
Beyond the anticipation, positioning and tackling there is the work rate, determination, aggression and, increasingly, the leadership on the field. This is a midfielder in the Leeds mould. If he sticks around long enough beyond the end of Liam Cooper’s tenure, you have the club’s next captain waiting in the wings.
Let’s not pretend this was a landslide victory. Two votes in Illan Meslier’s favour and he’s the man we would have been typing about. In the absence of Phillips and Raphinha, who was fourth in this vote incidentally and no doubt impacted by his exit, Meslier has become the blue-chip stock at Elland Road.
When a 22-year-old goalkeeper has more than 130 senior starts to his name people stand up and take notice. History would suggest Meslier’s not going to peak for another eight to 10 years, which is a frightening prospect.
After a couple of seasons of middling, perfectly acceptable performances, 2022 finally felt like the year we saw a breakthrough from the Frenchman. We are seeing those big, match-saving moments from him on a more frequent basis.
This calendar year has seen Leeds in and around the worst five clubs in the Premier League. When teams are conceding goals their goalkeeper is under the spotlight more and more, but Meslier’s far more often been seen as the saviour of points than the loser of them.
With Adams and Meslier both in their early 20s, you can easily imagine them contesting this prize among the fans in 12 months’ time too. Don’t bet against Brenden Aaronson exploding into some more consistent form in 2023 either.
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