How Leeds United could free up £85k p/w on their wage bill in January | OneFootball

FLW outline the weekly salaries of Joe Gelhardt and Patrick Bamford, with Daniel Farke rarely utilising the Leeds United forwards so far.

Leeds United, under Daniel Farke, entered the 2024/25 Championship season with plenty of ambition and plenty of high-quality players relative to the level they are playing at, which means that the Whites have one of the highest wage bills in the division.

Losing in the play-off final certainly came as a bitter blow to Leeds fans and players alike, as the Whites were unable to gain promotion at the first time of asking. Not only that, but many of them knew that they faced a tough summer period of rebuilding, with multiple players set to leave the club.

Indeed, in many ways, they have pruned the squad well in terms of outgoings while also bringing in quality, with much of the focus on giving Farke the strongest squad possible for a promotion charge. However, losing the likes of Georginio Rutter, Archie Gray, and Crysencio Summerville in big-money deals certainly came as a tough pill to swallow.

For Leeds, the battle for promotion from the Championship was a difficult one to navigate for the German coach, but he has also had plenty to deal with in the last two summer windows, having had to cope during two frenetic transfer periods that saw key players leave in both summers.

With parachute payments halved in their second year, and after reports emerged earlier in the summer that they may have to generate around £100 million in transfer fees, they were in need of big-money sales. That didn't stop them from being one of the biggest spending sides in the Championship, though.

Leeds' 2024/25 wage bill

A strong window of incomings, and a number of new additions hitting the ground running already, has heightened expectations during the first five months of the campaign. An already talented squad was aided by smart recruitment, including Ethan Ampadu, Pascal Struijk, and Willy Gnonto as key figures from last year remaining this season,

Largie Ramazani and Ao Tanaka are two names that have stood out among the better summer signings thus far. However, many of the additions Leeds made were bought for significant fees, namely Joe Rodon, Ramazani, Jayden Bogle, and Tanaka.

That denotes that the wage bill is one of the largest in the division. Naturally, high transfer value aligns with higher salaries as well. There are many players also on Premier League contracts and wages, including the likes of Patrick Bamford, Junior Firpo, Dan James, and Struijk among their top earners.

Even if trimming the wage bill through the aforementioned sales and some of the loaned out cohort as well has helped cut costs, Leeds' wage bill is costing them around £708,000 per week, as per Capology's estimates. That is an average weekly wage of 30,783 and an average annual payroll of £36,816,000.

Players such as James, Struijk, Firpo, and Bamford earn in excess of £50,000 per week, which highlights the gulf between themselves and some of the division's lower-budget sides. That only drives expectation further at Elland Road in 2024/25, but it also raises a question over whether they will increase such a high wage bill further next month.

Selling or loaning Patrick Bamford and Joe Gelhardt could help cut costs for Leeds

One way to cut costs and save money if the wage bill needs trimming is to offload fringe players and squad players that have seldom featured in Farke's plans so far. The first-team players who have been seen the least so far this season, with fewer than eight starts or ten appearances overall, include Karl Darlow, Alex Cairns, Joe Gelhardt, Max Wöber, Isaac Schmidt, Josuha Guilavogui, and Patrick Bamford.

Gelhardt and Bamford stand out in a stacked forward line of strikers and wide attackers, with Leeds only desperately requiring a playmaker to bolster Farke's attacking ranks, or a striker if one or both players were to depart. Neither of them have broken 200 minutes for Leeds this season, with poor form, injuries, and a falling down in the pecking order perhaps to blame for their lack of action.

Wages for squad players that include Cairns' £5,000 per week and Schmidt's £10,000 per week are far easier to justify as squad players not featuring regularly. However, the same cannot be said of the two forwards, and Bamford in particular. If Leeds need to free up room in their wage bill, then his reported£70,000 per week is something they may be aiming to shift next month.

Equally, Gelhardt's £15,000 weekly wage is sizeable for a player with just three appearances this term, and a young man in desperate need of a loan move to kickstart his career. That would be beneficial to both Leeds and Gelhardt, although finding suitors that are willing to take on Bamford's wage may prove to be a more difficult challenge.