Leeds United's hectic £45m January transfer window predicted - with Marseille, Brighton and Spurs deals

Leeds United will hope to see the benefit of their hard work during what was a challenging summer transfer window as Daniel Farke’s side look to make a return to the Premier League this season.

Following Saturday’s home defeat against fellow promotion challengers Burnley, the Whites are sat just outside of the play-off places as they look to go one step further than last season’s Championship play-off final defeat against Southampton. Their Wembley woe cost the Whites a number of key players during the close-season after the sale of the likes of Georginio Rutter, Archie Gray, Crysencio Summerville and Glen Kamara helped rake in around £150m in much-needed funds.

That is not to suggest Farke was not backed during the summer. The Whites completed the permanent signings of Joe Rodon, Largie Ramazani, Jayden Bogle, Ao Tanaka, Isaac Schmidt and Alex Cairns, as well as taking Tottenham Hotspur winger and Bournemouth midfielder Joe Rothwell on season-long loan deals. There is a feeling there is more work to do during the January transfer window if Farke’s side are to push for automatic promotion into the top flight - and that got us thinking. So we fired up Football Manager 2024, used the editor to set the Whites squad to its present state and allowed the world’s most popular managerial simulation to predict just how the first month of the new year could play out for Farke in the transfer market:

Ins

Although there were departures (more of those in a second), the January transfer window felt positive for Whites supporters as Farke received some major backing from the Elland Road hierarchy. To set the scene, Leeds ventured into the window sat in second place in the Championship and ended the month level on points with leaders Burnley after a number of new additions made a real impact for the Whites.

A first new signing came in the first two days of the window as Leeds handed over £5m to sign Tottenham Hotspur defender Ben Davies and he was quickly followed by a £8m deal for West Ham United striker Danny Ings. Emi Buendia arrived on loan for the rest of the season after a deal was struck with Aston Villa and a new goalkeeper arrived in the form of Jason Steele, who was snapped up in a £1m deal with Brighton and Hove Albion.

Outs

After losing the likes of Gray, Summerville and Rutter during the summer transfer window, there was more pain for Whites supporters as goalkeeper Illan Meslier became the latest big name to depart Elland Road. The January transfer window had only been opened for a matter of days when the French stopper completed a £19m move to Ligue 1 giants Marseille and ended his five-year stay with the club.

Brenden Aaronson also ventured to pastures new with a £12m switch to Borussia Monchengladbach and there only other departures came with Joe Gelhardt and Patrick Bamford making loan moves to Wrexham and Luton Town respectively.