Leeds United lost 1-0 to Southampton in Sunday’s Championship playoff final at Wembley; manager Daniel Farke is set to stay in charge at Elland Road this summer; Leeds will be favourites to gain promotion to the Premier League next season
Daniel has been fantastic, and I’m excited about working with him again next season. We had a long-term plan and commitment, and we have a lot of work to do to see our plan through. He has been tremendous with a steady hand, the right temperament. If you think about the circumstances he came into, he did a tremendous job. I’m excited about getting back at it with him as my partner and our leadership team. I feel confident about this season because we have at least a four or five-week start on what we had last year.
We are well capitalised from an investment standpoint. We have the funds that we need to do what we need to do. The reality of being in the Championship is that Profitability and Sustainability (P&S) plays a role. We also inherited a challenging situation, so naturally there are going to be some trade-offs. But also, we have a really good team, and it is not just about outs, but ins. We’re looking at scouting possibilities and players that we can bring in. We will have to make some trade-offs because of P&S but we have the investment commitment to do what we need to
Archie Gray’s strike deflects off Leicester defender Wout Faes to put Leeds ahead at Elland Road.
It’s a little too early to answer specific questions. I can’t talk on specific players right now. If I can paint the big picture for you, there are certain things we need to do and we will make sure we are fully compliant with P&S as we always have been, and there are certain trade-offs that we have to make. We will get to the drawing board and figure out which moves we have to make to make sure we are compliant. It is too early to say, obviously Archie is a tremendous player, as all the players who have put so much effort in for us, but every season brings change. I can’t yet comment on it, but we’ll see what happens.
Highlights from Wembley as Southampton beat Leeds United 1-0 to return to the Premier League.
We have to sit down as a leadership team with Daniel to see how we manage that. Fortunately, we don’t have as many of those situations as we had last year. We’re not in a race against time as we were last year. At this point last year, we were 12 days away from finalising our purchase of the club. We have a lot more time to think about it. The chemistry of the squad is also important, which players fit us and what we want to look like, and which don’t. And that will be taken into account along with some of the P&S complications.
The bigger greater development, we are still on the path and the timeline to doing that. It has been reported that nothing will happen until we get to the Premier League. But there’s still work to be done that we’re doing anyway. Work that needs to be done before you put a shovel in the ground. Not just work, but a significant investment. Whether we were in the Premier League or Championship, that money is committed and we’re continuing down that path. If you ask me this question in a year it may be a bit more complicated because at that point, we may be ready with a shovel, but everything right now is green lit, as it would have been in any case.
The outgoing transfer payments were already contemplated as we went about our transaction of the club last summer. We inherited a credit card bill that we knew we had to take care of. We made sure we had the investment we needed up front to make sure we were covered on that and being able to manage through that properly.
What is not in those numbers that were reported was some of the incoming payments that we also have, for example our two January sales in Tyler Adams and Luis Sinisterra. There are some inbound transfer payments coming from that. The net is already a bit lower than has been reported. We have what we need to be competitive, and we’ll shape the squad accordingly. We’ll need to have some outbounds because of P&S but we’ll also have some inbounds. We have what we need to compete among the best.
