Leeds United backed to sign midfielder with a "killer pass" to help title push | OneFootball

Leeds United have been encouraged to sign an attacking midfielder in January

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Leeds United have been urged to finally replace Georginio Rutter with an out-and-out attacking midfielder in order to spearhead their promotion push in the back-end of the season, having missed out on a number of ambitious and well-documented late summer moves.

Despite being forced into sanctioning significant player sales during the summer following their agonising play-off final defeat to Southampton, which saw the likes of Rutter, Crysencio Summerville, Archie Gray and Glen Kamara all head out the exit door for top-flight clubs, the Whites have been in strong form this season and currently represent strong value to return to the Premier League come the end of the season.

There have been bumps in the road, of course, and Leeds' away form is still a troubling issue which needs to be amended sooner rather than later, but the fact of the matter is Daniel Farke can boast such a strong squad compared to almost all of his counterparts and has his side just three points shy of league leaders Sheffield United.

Several players have stepped up to the mantle this term, with Willy Gnonto and Dan James remaining key attacking assets while summer signings such as Ao Tanaka, Joe Rothwell and Largie Ramazani have caught the eye, too.

However, the performances of Brenden Aaronson have continued to split opinion at Elland Road following a strong start after staying put against all odds, which could serve as a reminder of how important it is for Leeds to finally sign a more like-for-like replacement for Rutter in January.

Leeds United's James McAtee, Emi Buendia, Fabio Carvalho transfer attempts

In all fairness to Leeds, they sprung into action after Rutter's departure for Brighton and Hove Albion and eyed a number of exciting moves in the back-end of the summer window, albeit ambitious ones which were arguably always going to be unlikely.

Following the conclusion of the summer window, controversial CEO Angus Kinnear revealed that Leeds had set their sights upon James McAtee and Fabio Carvalho alongside Aston Villa playmaker Emi Buendia, who would have brought outstanding Championship pedigree given his two-time-title-lifting exploits with Norwich City.

Kinnear explained: "Bearing in mind, we’re looking at replacing a £40m player, which is obviously going to be challenging at Championship level. Buendia was on our list and very clearly from Aston Villa, wasn’t going to be released, and the player didn’t want to come back down to Championship level, he felt he’d served his time at Championship level.

He added: "Two of the other players, looking at the level we were looking at, McAtee at Man City, there was talk he might be released all the way through the window and then Pep [Guardiola] decided to keep him. And then Carvalho, who, again, might have been able to go out on another loan.

"It might have been a Championship loan or a Premier League loan. We thought we were first in the queue if it was going to be in the Premier League and he ended up being sold for £27m to Brentford."

Leeds may have missed out on targets during the summer, but they've been encouraged to relaunch their attempts to land an attack-minded midfielder following the turn of the year.

Leeds United, Daniel Farke urged to sign Georginio Rutter replacement

We asked our Whites fan pundit, Kris Smith, what Leeds' number one priority needs to be in the January window, and he believes it simply has to be signing an attacking midfielder - if they are to return to the Premier League as champions.

"For me, it absolutely has to be an attacking midfielder that Leeds are targeting in the new year given just how hard we tried for one in August," Kris told Football League World.

"The quality of targets that are available in January is likely much less than what you're going to get your hands on in the summer, obviously in terms of who is actually there for you to sign. But there should be some Premier League players that I think will be eager to get more playing time and we can offer that to them.

"We're lacking that killer pass at the moment from attacking midfield, and I think that's underlined by the fact Leeds are probably top in most attacking metrics you can measure in the Championship but our starting number 10 is Brenden Aaronson, who has just one assist in 21 games.

"That's just simply not good enough for a team that wants to win the league. If Leeds are to address that with a new signing, I think we could be onto a winner and could really cruise to the title."