It was a big summer of change at Leeds United with 21 players departing Elland Road either on loan or permanently.
Only Chelsea made more money in player sales than Leeds across the whole of Europe, with the big money exits of Georginio Rutter, Archie Gray and Crysencio Summerville enabling the Whites to generate the most profit in world football.
Last summer, much of the talk at Leeds was around those went on loan, but thankfully this time around, only two senior players were able to leave temporarily in Rasmus Kristensen and Jack Harrison.
Darko Gyabi, Sam Greenwood and Sonny Perkins were the other three to depart on loan deals, though it feels like there isn’t much of a future for any of them at Elland Road.
The official departures on free transfers of Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas (retired) and Liam Cooper also feels like the turning of a new chapter at Leeds.
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How much Liam Cooper will now be earning after Leeds exit
Despite Cooper‘s contract officially coming to an end at the end of June, Leeds were only able to deliver proper confirmation of his exit on Wednesday.
Cooper had been linked with moves to Championship clubs Hull City and Blackburn Rovers over the course of the summer, but in the end, opted for a move abroad to CSKA Sofia.
It is certainly a move that no one would have predicted after his exit from Leeds but according to Bulgarian outlet TopSport, it is seen as a huge transfer for their league.
In fact, as per that report, Cooper has immediately become CSKA Sofia’s highest paid player after putting pen-to-paper on a two-year-deal.
Cooper is set to earn a weekly salary of just over £13,000 a week, which is said to be considerably more than what he was on at Leeds.
Either way, it is good to see that Cooper has managed to find himself a move where he is going to be valued and hopefully he can help arrest their poor start to the season, which has them sat second bottom.
How CSKA Sofia brilliantly announced Cooper transfer
As mentioned, CSKA Sofia clearly view Cooper as a major coup for Bulgarian football and that was certainly reflected in their interesting announcement video.
Using his name and a typical American car-like voice over, CSKA Sofia posted a video of Scotland player Cooper getting out of a Mini Cooper and saying words such as “legendary, aggressive and iconic”.
The caption read: “Liam Cooper is one of us. We are switching gears.”
With five defeats in their opening six matches after finishing third last season, clearly they are placing some expectation on his shoulders that he can change their fortunes around.
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