Title-winner reveals personal experience of Leeds United transfer situation and squad divide prediction - YEP 12/7/23

Former Leeds United defender Tony Dorigo has offered his thoughts on the developing situation at Elland Road this summer, where a number of first-team players have returned to pre-season training despite the likelihood they will leave the club over the next few months.

By Tony Dorigo

I was in a similar [situation] at Leeds United when I'd had six years there, my contract was up, I was moving. I got offered a contract on quite a bit less money due to my injuries and what have you. So we kind of agreed to disagree and unfortunately, I was moving on. But, I was back getting fit and ready for my new club, but I wasn't the only one. I think it was Ian Rush and Carlton Palmer and lots of others were there.

It's part of the business, it's just the way that it is. I think there will come a time where once all the leg work and running is done, I suppose the groups might just separate because clearly, the manager has to concentrate on those games coming up in pre-season as well as the first league game. So, you would expect the ones not to be involved to be training kind of separately but you know, that’s no slight on anyone, that's just the way it is, that's football - you have to make a decision and I think as professional players we got on with it.

That's why I was looking from afar at the Chelsea situation and Graham Potter getting all those players, I'm thinking that's just an absolute nightmare. What chance did he have with such big, quality, powerful players but he had so many of them to try to fit them all into a team, let alone a training session – it was always going to be difficult.

The same at pre-season, it is important that everything is kind of cleared up as quickly as you can but sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes clubs will go for their one, two and three priority signings and number four could be left 'til quite late. Whatever the situation is, as players, as professionals you have to make sure that you're ready for whatever scenario emanates. I think players these days, they understand that and pre-season, it’s always important not to miss it and get some really good fitness into the legs, for wherever you may be.

I think there's always a balance between the ones [players] that you really want to keep, the ones that unfortunately will have to go and then you look at the financial side as well. So keeping that all on an even keel is what it's all about.

Now, those decisions, I think we won't know the answer until the end of the season if they were the right ones, but clearly with the players [Koch, Llorente, Aaronson], it's been frustrating. Certainly for Brenden Aaronson, when he started the campaign, we thought: 'Wow, what a good player we've got here’, but unfortunately he just struggled, his form dipped and we didn't really see the best of him.

Hopefully he goes away and rejuvenates himself and gets back to what we know and what we saw early in the season.

Robin Koch, same sort of thing, really good player, has done well, he wants to get back, obviously, in the German international side and playing Championship, it's going to be very difficult for him [to achieve that]. So, you could see that happening as well.

But, I think it’s going to be a case of waiting and seeing if we can keep two or three very key players. Now obviously, I've got two or three key players in mind but I don't know how we're gonna play, how we're gonna set up and don't know what's coming in. So, I think that will be the conversations between the manager and certainly Nick Hammond and hopefully we come up with a squad in depth that's good enough to get us back up again.