Leeds United CEO Angus Kinnear has revealed the one thing which has “brutally” disappointed him at Elland Road.
How are Leeds doing?
The Whites, lead by new manager Daniel Farke, have endured a mixed start to the Championship season; having won just one second tier match, losing another whilst drawing three.
Leeds dropped points against Sheffield Wednesday, Cardiff City, Birmingham City and West Brom, with their only win so far coming in a thrilling 4-3 away victory at Ipswich Town.
The Elland Road side, it seems, have a lot of work to do if they’re to bounce right back up to the Premier League at the first time of asking.
However, new signings like Jaiden Anthony, who joined on a season-long loan from Bournemouth, are “excited” by the challenge ahead.
“I’m really excited,” said Anthony ahead of the international break.
It all happened really quickly, but I’m buzzing to get in and around the group and hopefully help the team.
“The year before last I got promoted from this division, I played a lot of games in it and I know it’s a really tough league, it’s really physical and very demanding.
“It’s exciting to come back now and try and push for another promotion.
“I feel like I’ve been getting better every year, last year was a big step up and I managed to play a lot of games and hopefully I can now use that here.
“The goal is to get promoted, play as many games as possible, help the team and be a big part of success.“
To boost their chances, Leeds and Kinnear sought to bring in Joel Piroe, Ethan Ampadu, Ilia Gruev, Glen Kamara, Djed Spence, Karl Darlow, Sam Byram, Anthony and Joe Rodon over a busy summer transfer window.
However, Leeds also lost a host of key squad members after their drop to the second tier – a list which includes Tyler Adams, Rodrigo, Robin Koch, Maximilian Wober, Tyler Roberts, Adam Forshaw, Joel Robles, Brenden Aaronson, Jack Harrison, Luis Sinisterra and Rasmus Kristensen.
Angus Kinnear interview
Yorkshire’s arguable biggest club are undergoing a major transitional period as Farke attempts to get the very best out of a much-changed squad from last term.
The next few months at Leeds will prove very interesting at Leeds, with club CEO Kinnear recently shedding light on the one thing which has “brutally” disappointed him.
Indeed, the Leeds chief said that he’s been truly shocked at how some players have crawled over “broken glass” to leave.
“I have to say, I kind of feel like I’ve been maybe naive about it, but it’s been just brutally disappointing at how we’ve seen players want to crawl over broken glass to leave our club,” said Kinnear to The Athletic’s Square Ball podcast.
“You guys know, I love the club and I know we’ve had a bad year but I thought there would be for a number of these players, there’d be a bigger emotional bond and there’d be a desire to sort of put right bad seasons that they had last year.
“I think it’s more of an issue of people’s lack of desire to play in the Championship and I have to say, I would confess we definitely underestimated the strength of that feeling.”
