The powers that be at Leeds United are looking to take the club further forward this summer to avoid any chance of a difficult second season, and will look to improve the playing squad as much as they are allowed to by the financial regulations.

Daniel Farke has already called on the club to match his ambitions, and yesterday Paraag Marathe was quoted by the Athletic as saying “We remain ambitious, but measured and deliberate, understanding it will take three long-fought seasons before we can truly operate like an established Premier League side.”

As they search for new players the board will have to adhere to the new Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) rules, which will restrict our football-related spending to 85% of the income we get from football activities. The spending is the wages of the squad and the head coach, agents’ fees and amortised transfer fees (the fee spread over the duration of the player’s contract).

Revenues are ticket sales and income from broadcasting and the corporates, plus any profits from player sales. The change should benefit us, as our fanbase is at least mid-ranking amongst the Premier league clubs, while the PSR rules in place last season penalised us as a newly promoted club.

And once the stadium expansion has been completed in a few years time we will be in an even better position. Expenditure on infrastructure doesn’t count as a football-related cost, but the increase gate receipts and corporate income we will get in future years will count as revenue in the SCR calculation, allowing for further improvements on the playing side.

According to Beren Cross in the Athletic, Leeds are looking to make improvements in attacking areas, the one department where our last summer transfer window fell short after a promising start where the other areas of the squad were adequately strengthened. This time there will be more of a focus on a creative ‘number 10’ early in the window, as well as possibly another striker.

It’s possible that we might go back for another go at signing Harry Wilson, and this time we could get him for nothing, unless he signs another contract at Fulham when his current deal comes to an end on June 30th. But after his impressive season at the Cottage, there is likely to be competition for his signature.

Elsewhere in the squad, they are looking for a bit of cover for the full-back positions, even though Justin can operate on either flank, as he has often been called on to operate in central defence. 18 year-old Jayden Lienou has been getting rave reviews and has been called up to the full Welsh squad, so could be an option for a few appearances if we can’t land a more experienced defender.

By now Daniel Farke has won over most of his critics on social media, but one festering sore is his failure to develop any of our talented youth players into regular first team players. We’ve already seen Charlie Cresswell go to Toulouse for £4m, and in January the French club chose to turn down a £20m offer from Brighton for his services.

The Seagulls are likely to go back with a bigger offer this summer, but Toulouse’s valuation has risen still higher in the meantime, such has been the quality of Cresswell’s performances. Leeds will get 15% of the profit of any transfer fee, but it’s a shame Leeds weren’t able to hang onto him and either get the full amount, or to use him as a player.

So hopefully Lienou won’t end up going the same way, and surely it won’t be too long before we start to see Harry Gray getting a few more opportunities in the first team. Charlie Crew and Sam Chambers are likely to go out on loan for the coming season, but are also approaching the point where they need to see some first team action.

Leeds don’t need to sell any key players, though will want to persuade Karl Darlow to sign another deal, and will be mindful that Struijk only has a year left on his current contract. Hopefully he was just waiting for us to ensure we retained our Premier League status before committing himself, but if he doesn’t the club may want to cash in before we lose him for nothing.

It’s likely that some of the fringe players may be leaving in search of more regular first team football elsewhere, and we’ve already reported on Freiburg’s interest in Willie Gnonto. Tanaka might be tempted if any offers come in after the world cup, and Piroe might be looking to move, with the upper reaches of the Championship seeming to be his limit.

There are six players whose loan periods have ended, of whom Gelhardt is the only one likely to attract much interest from other clubs, after his impressive loan spell at Hull. He seemed to have a bright Leeds future towards the end of our relegation-avoiding season of 2021/2, but since has been the victim of Farke’s lone striker policy, being too small to fulfil that role.

We might be able to fit him in as a second striker, but it seems more likely that he will be moving to Hull City, if they want to keep him in their tilt at Premier League survival. Ramazani, Harrison, Wöber and Schmidt are all still on the books, and will almost certainly be going out on loan to anyone who wants them.

But Matteo Joseph isn’t going anywhere soon, as his disappointing loan spell in Spain ended with an ACL serious knee injury, so the first thing he needs to do is recover from that. It’s a pity we didn’t cash in on him 12 months ago, when he had already made it clear he saw his future back in his native land.

In terms of specific transfer targets, the various Leeds sites are awash with plenty of speculation about quite a number of different players, but very few hard facts to back it all up. It’s likely that the transfer market won’t really get going until after the World Cup, but we’ll bring you some more definite information as soon as we get it.

Reuters