As the 2022/23 season came to an end, Leeds United fans were outraged.
Their beloved club had been relegated once more, this time to the Championship, following a disastrous season that saw three managers come and go.
Victor Orta also left, but not before causing havoc at Elland Road, with a number of his acquisitions quickly throwing in the towel and fleeing to brighter footballing shores.
Luis Sinisterra, Robin Koch, Rodrigo, Tyler Adams, and others left, but some of their best attacking skill remained. Crysencio Summerville and Georginio Rutter are both among them.
Life hasn’t been easy for the Frenchman, who appeared to be following in the scuffled footsteps of Jean-Kevin Augustin.
Rutter, like the former RB Leipzig attacker, made a splash in the January transfer window. He, like Augustin, struggled for playing time. Thankfully, the 21-year-old’s tenure at Leeds did not finish in a legal battle.
Instead, new manager Daniel Farke has given him minutes in the Championship. So he should as well. After all, this is a club-record £35 million deal.
Rutter has how many goals for Leeds?
The youthful forward had a shaky start to life in the English second tier, but has come alive in recent weeks, indicating he could be Farke’s solution.
He scored against Ipswich at the end of August and then returned with flair when football resumed last Saturday after the international break.
They were sensational alongside new signing Joel Piroe, combining brilliantly in a 3-0 win over Millwall.
Rutter scored the game’s final goal, racing onto a ball into the penalty area from a counter-attack, but not before he’d done his fair share of creating, making five vital passes in the game, one of which found the aforementioned Piroe to open the scoring.
Such a rampant free-flowing display was like watching Bielsa’s Leeds all over again. It was like watching Pablo Hernandez and Patrick Bamford of old, just with a little more pace, trickery and razzmatazz, not that two of the great Argentine’s disciples had boring play styles.
Rutter and indeed Piroe will be key this term if Leeds are to secure promotion at the first time of asking, but they’re not the only livewires who could play a vital role. Step forward from the wilderness, Daniel James.
Where has it gone wrong for Daniel James at Leeds?
The tale of James and Leeds is a rather remarkable one. Rewind to a cold winter’s day in January of 2019 and he was undergoing a medical with the club.
A £7 million contract was in place to sign him from Piroe’s former club, Swansea City, but as the minutes and hours passed, the transaction fell through.
The Welshman had appeared for team images and handled media obligations, only to return to Wales for the rest of the season.
In June, he made an incredible move to Manchester United, but Bielsa quickly had his man in the building. After a disappointing tenure at Old Trafford, James found himself crossing the Pennines into Leeds. A £25m transfer was completed in 2021, but his stay has not been without incident.
He has only found the net on four occasions in 45 outings and was far from Jesse Marsch’s plans last term, ultimately loaned out to Fulham. A plethora of inconsistent displays which lacked end product was the reason for the 25-year-old’s downfall.
Now, however, he is back in the division where he really made a name for himself, having scored four and registered an impressive 11 assists in 37 Championship outings for Swansea.
How has Daniel James performed this season?
Already, James appears to be more at ease at this level. He is not yet a regular starter for Leeds, but an assist in the 1-1 draw with West Brom and another assist from the bench against Millwall on Sunday have prompted hopes that he could make a significant contribution this season.
He will have to beat Summerville on Farke’s right side first, but there is already a strong conviction that the small winger has what it takes to thrive in the EFL.
His energetic cameo last weekend was sufficient confirmation, with Leeds Live’s Beren Cross commenting in his post-match player ratings that it was “such a luxury having a player of this standing come off the bench.”
That is largely owed to his remarkable pace, of which has been described as an “absolute nightmare” for the opposition by Micah Richards.
With Summerville and Willy Gnonto on the flanks, Rutter and Piroe are unlikely to go unnoticed this season, but with James, a player with lethal pace and know-how in this league, they might become even more dangerous.
Leeds are having a PARTY at The Den 😮 pic.twitter.com/o3D7z5n4I9
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) September 17, 2023
This season, there won’t be many better players off the bench than James, who can exploit fatigued legs to create chance after chance for his teammates in the final third.
Things are clicking for the Wales international in Leeds, and happily, they are also clicking for Farke. The offensive line must be salivating with such a fantastic group of players to choose from.
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