"Look at Ipswich Town" - Brian Deane raises issue Leeds United are facing | OneFootball

The Whites are a bit short of options at the moment.

Brian Deane believes that Leeds United currently have a squad depth issue.

The summer departures of Archie Gray, Cyrsencio Summerville and Georginio Rutter started a panic among the Leeds faithful about what was to come. With a few weeks left in the window, their team for this season looked a bit of a shell of the one they regularly turned out last season.

Despite the worries, things have turned out pretty alright. Leeds are still one of the leading contenders to win promotion back to the Premier League, and they were able to bring in some pieces to help bolster the number of bodies available to Daniel Farke.

Annoyingly for him, that number, especially in key areas, has been reduced. Farke has lost captain Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev - his preferred midfield partnership - to two separate knee injuries that will keep both players out until after the new year, leaving summer signings Joe Rothwell and Ao Tanaka as the only natural midfield options.

Reports have suggested that the Whites have been trying to address this issue by dipping into the free agent market. Two former Premier League centre-mids - Cheikhou Kouyate and Francis Coquelin - have been linked with joining Leeds in recent days.

Farke said in his press conference on Wednesday, ahead of his side's Yorkshire derby against Deane's other former team, Sheffield United, that he was "carefully optimistic," about signing a free agent in the coming days and weeks.

This sort of action is what Leeds drastically need, according to their former player.

Brian Deane on Leeds United's squad depth issue

The England forward believes that Leeds have a problem with the number of players currently available to them. This was an issue that they rarely contended with in last season's promotion push where they came ever so close to achieving their goal.

Now it's an issue for them, and Deane believes it could affect their chances of going up.

"It is [an issue]," the 56-year-old exclusively told Football League World. "Teams that get promoted from the Championship tend to do so because they have lots of different options.

"That’s an area where the football becomes scrappy and Leeds can’t play that free-flowing football, and have to find a way to win.

"Look at Ipswich Town last year bringing in Kieffer Moore. They had a couple of options with George Hirst also scoring, and it allowed them to look at their opposition and assess what they needed on the day, and having that flexibility at the end of the season definitely helps you pick up points.

"Someone like Kieffer Moore, you don’t have to play that type of footballer every week, but you need somebody as a different type of option to open up defences, and Sheffield United have jumped on that. He gives them a different option to what everyone else does, and answers questions that they didn’t have the answers to before."

Leeds do need to recruit from the free agency market

It's not even an open secret anymore that Leeds are trying to sign players. Farke's comments from Wednesday prove as much.

The desire to get someone is 100% there, but there is no guarantee of being able to get the person they want. In this case, they need to be willing to accept some faults.

It's getting closer and closer to the winter months, and during that time there is a lot of football to be played. Leeds will struggle to make it through until the new year when Ampadu and Gruev are back with just Rothwell and Tanaka as options; they, too, could be at risk of picking up injuries.

On the attacking versatility side of things that Deane alluded to, the players are there to change things up a bit, if needs be. But, regardless of where on the pitch you feel they should be targeting, it's clear that some level of recruitment is needed right now.