The £31m January transfer disastrous mistake Leeds United need to swerve when the window opens

When the January transfer window opens, few teams’ business will be as intriguing to watch as Leeds United’s. Battling relegation after a promising start to life back in the Premier League, the work they do – or perhaps don’t do – over the coming weeks could have a massive impact on the club’s short-term future.

Some sources suspect that Leeds do have a transfer budget for January despite stories suggesting that they spent everything in the summer – but it will be limited, and how they spend it will be crucial. So with the window fast approaching, is a £31m striker really the right way to go?

Leeds United have been linked with Troy Parrott – but can they afford him?

At the end of a £100m summer of spending, Leeds managing director Robbie Evans said in an interview that “we spent everything we could. Unequivocally, we are maxing PSR out this season.”

That was generally taken to be the gospel truth and broadly tallied with revenue calculations, but doubt was cast on the claim that Leeds are penniless this month by an expert interviewed by Leeds United News – who believes that there is likely to be some spending money available in the new year.

It probably won’t be much, but the fact that Leeds made a public pursuit of Fulham’s Harry Wilson on transfer deadline day suggests that they do indeed have some room to manoeuvre over the coming month or so, and if they amortised their summer spending to a significant degree then they could easily have a respectable amount of money to play with.

Which, perhaps, is why their name is repeatedly coming up in conversations about the future of Troy Parrott, whose stunning form for the Republic of Ireland and steady improvement in the Eredivisie with AZ Alkmaar has made him a major target for several Premier League teams.

While far from confirmed, a few of the gossip websites, including GiveMeSport, suggest that AZ want €35m (just under £31m) for the 23-year-old, who is finally living up to the immense potential he was credited with having while coming through the youth ranks at Tottenham Hotspur. He’s certainly proven that he can score in clutch moments for his country. Leeds may well need that.

If Leeds did make a move for Parrott – and it’s far from certain that they would win the race given that several other top-flight teams appear to be interested – then it would likely be the case that they had little or no room to make other signings. In short, Parrott would have to be the difference between relegation and survival. But is a striker really what they need?

Why a striker should perhaps not be at the top of Leeds’ shopping list

It’s surprisingly uncommon for a single prolific striker to keep a team afloat by themselves when the rest of the squad are struggling. There was Jon Stead at Blackburn in 2004, granted, but there are few good examples since.

Carlos Tevez might spring to mind but he only hit the back of the net seven times for West Ham over the course of that controversial relegation battle back in the 2006/07 season. Jamie Vardy only managed five goals all season when Leicester clung on by the skin of the teeth the year before their remarkable title win. It’s rarely the case that a striker makes all the difference.

In fact, the most important player in the Leicester team that narrowly escaped relegation in 2015 was probably defensive midfielder Esteban Cambiasso – evidence, perhaps, that there’s more to winning and staying up than scoring goals, and that class is required in other departments.

It could be a lesson that Leeds would benefit from taking on board. Neither Dominic Calvert-Lewin nor Lukas Nmecha have been consistently lethal – they have four league goals apiece – but taken as a whole, scoring goals is not really Leeds’ primary problem.

The 19 goals they’ve managed in 15 matches is relatively modest but it’s better than any of the four teams below them and their expected goals tally – 19.8 – is mid-table level. They may not be devastating going forward with Calvert-Lewin and Nmecha, but they are creating enough chances and scoring enough goals to steer clear of the bottom three. Just about, anyway.

More worrying is their defensive record. Only two teams (Wolves and Burnley) have conceded more goals and only four have allowed the opposition to rack up a higher total xG. Statistically, they have some of the weakest goalkeeping returns and allow a worryingly high number of high-quality chances – they’re in the bottom three, again, for xG per shot allowed. A niche stat, perhaps, but another one which highlights the fact that Leeds are vulnerable at the back and make it all too easy, too often.

It's understandable if the supporters in the stands at Elland Road aren’t necessarily convinced by their current strikers, both of whom are undershooting their xG (albeit not severely) but they’re a mid-table team when they have the ball, at least judging by the underlying numbers. It’s the back line which is causing the problems.

That suggests that maybe going all-in on a striker who isn’t proven in the Premier League may not be the best way to spend the last pennies of the owners’ money, if indeed there are a few coins left in the kitty. There are a few holes to patch up in Daniel Farke’s squad which could be more important that upgrading a strike force which is, more or less, holding its own.

Parrott, or a forward like him – Leeds have been linked with plenty, from Satiago Giménez to Tyrique George to the exciting young Franculino Djú – may well make Leeds better. They would certainly represent rather exciting signings. But there is a fair bit of evidence to suggest that perhaps the best way to go about avoiding relegation is to improve the work they do when they don’t have the ball first, and find some exciting new attacking talent in the summer once they’ve ensured they’re still in the right league.