A return to the Premier League means a return to top table for Leeds United when it comes to scouring the market for players capable of bringing further excitement to Elland Road.
Goodbye Grady Diangana – Leeds were reportedly considering the West Brom winger in what would have been a very underwhelming free-transfer deal – and hello the likes of Pavel Sulc, Evann Guessand and Edouard Spertsyan.
If Diangana felt very much like a signing for a club stuck in the Championship, Leeds United’s return to the Premier League should open Daniel Farke up to a much higher class, if higher price, of footballer.
Viktoria Plzen playmaker Pavel Sulc is on Borussia Dortmund’s radar. According to reports, Nice value Evann Guessand at £20 million. And while the talismanic Krasnodar captain is interested in a move to Elland Road, Edouard Spertsyan wanted Premier League football to be on offer before he made any long-term decision.
As for Noa Lang, the PSV Eindhoven winger is another Leeds – their budget suddenly inflated by Premier League riches – could now potentially afford if they put their minds to it.
Leeds United wanted Noa Lang before his PSV move
Whether Lang returns to Leeds’ radar, however, is anyone’s guess at this stage.
It is no secret that Leeds pulled the plug on a deal with Club Brugge back in 2021. Lang himself would later admit that the Yorkshire giants tried to sign him for a club-record fee of £35 million because ‘Marcelo Bielsa doubted how much work I could do without the ball’.
Daniel Farke is certainly not the laissez-faire type – Largie Ramazani was dropped by the Leeds boss after losing one duel too many, for example – but perhaps the German would be willing to overlook Lang’s occasionally defensive deficiencies in favour of his mercurial, often match-winning talents in the final third.
Then again, with Manor Solomon in the building and likely to stay put, another left-winger is unlikely to feature too highly on the shopping list.
“Noa is Noa. I had him for ten years. He’s just a really sweet boy, helpful,” Nourdin Boukhari, Lang’s stepfather, tells Goedemorgen Eredivisie on ESPN. “He’s a boy with a lot of qualities, because when I watch him I almost always enjoy him.
“But sometimes there are matches where it doesn’t work out. Then, he starts to grumble. That’s Noa too. You should cherish players like that, I think. There are only a few players in the Eredivisie who are like Noa.
“When he is at 100 per cent, he dribbles past everyone. But when things are not going well, he wants to win so badly that he provokes reactions with his behaviour.
“I often said to him at the time; ‘Stop with those gestures and just focus on playing football, because you are really good at that’.”
Lang’s stepfather still dreaming of big move for Dutch international
Boukhari has not given up hope of seeing Lang bring his explosive ball-striking and his ‘expect the unexpected’ approach to one of Europe’s major leagues.
Even during a season in which he has been in-and-out of the PSV XI, the dynamic and occassionally-devastating Dutch international has 11 goals and 11 assists apiece.
“I expected much more [interest from] abroad. Those opportunities were there [in the past]. When he was at Club Brugge, AC Milan and Leeds United were interested. And last winter, Napoli,” Boukhari recalls.
“I had hoped that he would have gone that way, because then he could have shown his qualities there. I think he can succeed there. He really wants to go abroad.”
PSV would eventually bring one-time Ajax starlet Lang back to the Netherlands two years, paying just a fraction of the fee Leeds were prepared to offer at £13 million.
Back at Elland Road, meanwhile, Leeds now have a decision to make over Manor Solomon – their current left winger – with Tottenham Hotspur’s £15 million asking price seemingly a bargain for a man who played such an integral role in what could prove to be a title-winning campaign.
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