We’ve reached the final week of the regular Championship season and Leeds United still have the chance to win automatic promotion. The Whites will have their fingers crossed for a favour on Tuesday night from Coventry City who take on Ipswich Town at the CBS Arena.
Should the Sky Blues stun Kieran McKenna’s side, Leeds will be in charge of their own destiny come Saturday. If Ipswich leave the West Midlands with either a win or a draw, though, the Whites will be considered outsiders going into the final day.
It’s still all to play for, of course, and ahead of Ipswich’s all-important game on Tuesday night, we’ve taken a look at some of the biggest headlines out there.
Ayling interest builds
Birmingham City have registered their interest in signing Leeds United defender Luke Ayling on a free transfer this summer. The Sun have that report, with the national newspaper claiming the Blues are willing to compete with Sheffield United for the 32-year-old’s signature.
Ayling has been on loan at Middlesbrough since January and he has impressed with his form under Michael Carrick. As such, it has been reported on Teesside that the club are likely to push to make his loan move permanent in the summer upon his expected release from the Whites.It seems Ayling won’t be short of options this summer then and while the league table suggests Birmingham might not be favourites for his signature, he would have plenty to offer in the second city. Birmingham may well be mulling over the signing of another Leeds right-back this summer with Cody Drameh’s loan move at the club coming to an end.
Drameh, who has made 31 appearances for Birmingham, will be a free agent this summer and his fate is yet to be decided.
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Leeds United will be forced to sell a number of their star names to balance the books should they fail to win promotion, says Sky Sports pundit Don Goodman. The Whites are currently second in the Championship and even if they were to miss out on automatic promotion this week, they would have the opportunity to progress through the play-offs.
However, should the Whites continue to stutter, they could be forced to part with the likes of Crysencio Summerville and Archie Gray, while their chances of being able to secure the likes of Joe Rodon permanently would appear slim. Goodman believes failure wouldn’t be the end of the world financially, but it would make their chances of being able to bounce back next season that little bit harder.
“It would be, not quite a disaster – that’s too strong a word – but it would not be good at all given the finances,” Goodman told MOT Leeds News. “You already look at what happened last summer and you question the policy of building loan possibilities into players’ futures in the event of relegation.
“It means players were able to leave on loan that they could have got decent money for. You look at Southampton, they brought in something like £165 million for selling three or four assets.
“That’s what Leeds should have been doing last summer and then none of these problems would have come about. But they didn’t, and that comes down to the logistics of the contracts they struck with the agents of these players. They were all favourable to the players and not Leeds United. The future is not bleak as such if they don’t go up, but they could lose players and it would make it harder then to get promoted to the Premier League.
“Even if they do end up in the play-offs, it’s imperative they win those. The pressure is on for them to get back to the Premier League in order to ease their financial problems.”
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