Ethan Ampadu is the rock on which Leeds United’s promotion charge is based — The Athletic 25/3/24

By Phil Hay

At Spezia, it was said more than once that two Ethan Ampadus would have been good: one to play at six and the other to play at centre-back. For a footballer with the attributes to fill either position, what to do when the answer to the question of which suits him best is ‘both’?

Thirty-eight games into Leeds United’s season, Daniel Farke is no better placed to settle the debate. Ampadu, for several months, was rock solid at the base of his midfield but since January, he has been part of a defence which is as close as it gets to being impossible to penetrate. Certain players are what they are, but Ampadu? The discussion about him is the toss of a coin.

So Farke, like Spezia in Italy, where Ampadu grew up a little more on loan last season, would happily have two versions of him in his line-up, but with the 23-year-old away on international duty with Wales, United’s manager will settle for the safe return of the only Ampadu he has. The past eight months have been a test of how bulletproof Farke’s first signing for Leeds is and no respite is coming. In pursuit of promotion, Farke might need Ampadu to push through and compile an ever-present Championship term.

Before leaving to join up with Wales, for whom Ampadu became the youngest player to reach 50 caps on Thursday and will attempt to reach the Euro finals against Poland tomorrow night, he had started every one of Leeds’ league fixtures — second in their division for minutes amassed by an outfield player. Farke gave him a matter of seconds off by substituting him towards the end of United’s Boxing Day defeat at Preston North End and left him out of an FA Cup replay at Plymouth Argyle, even though Ampadu did not want the break. But aside from that, downtime has been minimal. “He does a lot between games to recover,” Farke said. “He’s very professional and mature for a young age.”

Ampadu’s mid-season switch from midfield to centre-back, two positions he has alternated between during his career, was brought about by an injury to Pascal Struijk, Farke’s first-choice left-sided centre-back. Struijk’s adductor strain saw Ampadu drop into Farke’s back line and Ilia Gruev step into the team at six. Last week, Farke delivered some potentially bad news about Struijk. A programme of injection therapy had failed to get him fit. Struijk might need surgery, which would sideline him until the summer. A decision was still to be made, but something in Farke’s tone said an operation was likely. “If we do this, he’s out for the season,” Farke said.

Nothing at Leeds is more certain than Ampadu’s name on the teamsheet, but an absent Struijk would make his form and durability critical for the matches that remain. Like Ben White, who started and finished every league fixture when Leeds last won promotion in 2020, Ampadu has a knack for going through contest after contest without looking like the elastic is about to snap, and his prior record before United bought him did not cast him as at all injury-prone. Farke is ever more sure of the sense of the £7million ($8.8m) spent on Ampadu, a transfer deal which has been integral to Leeds’ post-relegation recovery.

This time last year, when Ampadu was nearing the end of his loan at Spezia from Chelsea and having serious discussions about what would come next, he set his mind on two things: a permanent transfer out of Stamford Bridge and a move to a club who would get him into the habit of winning regularly. Three of his four loan moves out of Chelsea had gone well personally — at RB Leipzig, he and his camp were let down by what they felt were assurances over game time which Julian Nagelsmann failed to keep — and although there were relegation battles at Sheffield United, Venezia and then Spezia last season, Ampadu built up appearances and matured with the experience.

Time away from London meant that by last summer, teams with an interest in him were talking about someone who was only 22 but had seen more than 80 league fixtures across three different European top flights. He had been on Chelsea’s books since 2017, signed from Exeter City at the age of 16, but it was clear that a breakthrough at Stamford Bridge wasn’t coming. Chelsea were told he wanted a long-term exit. Carlo Cudicini, the club’s former goalkeeper and loans manager, was particularly sympathetic and Chelsea agreed that he could go for a sensible price. Their valuation of below £10million ($12.6m) gave him options.

Contacts in Italy helped to present two mid-table possibilities in Serie A. Ampadu’s agency also had connections with Didi Hamann, the former Liverpool midfielder, in Germany and mid-level Bundesliga interest materialised. In England, Premier League approaches were more speculative, promising to keep in touch but openly saying that Ampadu was not top of their list. Down in the Championship, though, he cut a seriously attractive asset.

Leeds, ironically, had the look of shambles from the outside at the end of last season: tamely relegated and beset by the challenge of transitioning to new ownership, a new coach and a new squad. But the first two of those changes — 49ers Enterprises buying out Andrea Radrizzani and Farke stepping into the dugout — were influential in making Ampadu a viable target.

A source close to the transfer, who asked not to be named for reasons of confidentiality, told The Athletic it was unlikely Ampadu would have been interested in joining Leeds a year earlier because their previous ownership had begun to look unstable. Despite relegation, last summer’s takeover by 49ers Enterprises and the money behind the group presented a more credible plan for future success. As it was put to The Athletic: “They knew what they knew about football and they were sensible enough to know that they knew very little. Because of that, they put the right football people in place.”

One of those football people, transfer consultant Nick Hammond, was key in getting Ampadu over the line as signing number one. He was well known to Ampadu’s people and trusted by them, so promises about 49ers’ intentions were seen as genuine. Farke himself made a difference, too, listing Ampadu as a top target and speaking to him personally.

Farke had a reputation as a bit of a specialist at winning the Championship. He had tried to sign Ampadu previously at Norwich City and saw him as a calming presence in what was likely to be an inexperienced dressing room; “positively and refreshingly mundane,” as someone who knows Ampadu described him. Farke came in on July 4. Ampadu arrived a fortnight later. Both investments have shaped   the club’s campaign.

The freedom to exploit Ampadu’s positional flexibility depended on what happened next. Unlike previous years, when Leeds left themselves chronically short of bodies in midfield, they went heavy on that area, paying Rangers £5million ($6.3m) for Glen Kamara, bringing Gruev in from Werder Bremen from Germany, and making Archie Gray an out-and-out first-team squad member. Though Ampadu played as a midfielder between August and New Year, Farke had the depth to compensate for Struijk’s injury by shifting him into centre-back alongside Joe Rodon and giving concerted minutes to Gruev. The quirk of an enforced change is that it made Leeds even more goal-resistant.

One of the similarities between this Leeds side and Marcelo Bielsa’s promoted team is the presence of central defenders with the on-ball finesse to operate in midfield. It was that inherent strength which made Bielsa so keen on White at the start of the 2019-20 term. Struijk is an accomplished defender and good with his feet, but Ampadu is more mobile and a better passer of the ball again. Leeds’ defending has not been compromised by the switch. It is now more than 80 days since they conceded in the league from open play. Their xGA with Ampadu in defence is 0.83 per 90 minutes, marginally below their season average.

So even if Struijk was to avoid surgery and make himself available again, Farke would have to find a very good reason to revert to his original centre-back pair. He is not a coach who breaks easily from formulas that work for him and he is not prone to tinkering either. Much is made of his reluctance or patience when it comes to using his bench in-game and the average time of his substitutions is 77 minutes and 37 seconds — the latest in the Championship by a distance. It is usually necessary to convince him that something is broken before he tries to fix it.

Struijk might well be broken short-term and it will be clear before long if surgery is required. If it is, Farke can only place even greater faith in the idea that Ampadu is unbreakable; that the signing who started Leeds’ recovery is there to finish it off in the eight games that remain. Farke would take two Ampadus if he could, but for the run-in, one will more than do.