Position 18 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Leeds United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noah Okafor is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Leeds United can tell you which week it ends in.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 6.77, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 George Davies left the room before anybody could ask which.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Noah Okafor falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Joe Rodon has his answer from Leeds United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jaka Bijol signs something — a contract at Leeds United or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Everton next, and one man in the Leeds United dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Leeds United will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Sam Chambers’s exile
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 8 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Leeds United until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Jacob Render reports back to Leeds United with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Leeds United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noah Okafor is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Leeds United than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.7M — a club that wants Viktor Johansson enough to be asked twice.
Leon Goretzka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Aston Villa
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Simon Matthews is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Joseph Stewart is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Oliver Pearson has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matteo Ruggeri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Squad16 new faces, and Aston Villa are still learning each other
Leeds United asked and Burnley said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$12.6M was the most the club would pay and Brentford were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The chase for Viktor Johansson ended with $5.5M changing hands and Stoke City out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Leeds United have gone to Leicester City with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The deal with Leicester City is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.6M — a club that wants Ben Nelson enough to be asked twice.
Walsall pay $790.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Leeds United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noah Okafor is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
In brief
Boardroom5 academy players handed senior numbers at Leeds United
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Brighton have kept their man, and Leeds United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to Brentford this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$5.5M on the table at Stoke City. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $13.6M — a club that wants Hákon Rafn Valdimarsson enough to be asked twice.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Millwall will make the call about James Justin this week. Leeds United have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The clubs have shaken hands with Burnley; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Gil Vicente had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $29.2M — a club that wants Marcus Edwards enough to be asked twice.
Add another name to the list: Shrewsbury Town have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nikola Jojić. The answer from Stoke City has not changed — yet.
Swansea City have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stoke City, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ben Johnson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Viktor Johansson wants continental football; whether Stoke City can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Stoke City can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad3 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Stoke City are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
In brief
The dugoutGeorge Hirst knocks on the manager’s door