The dust has settled, the smoke has cleared, the summer 2026 transfer window has come to a close, and the latch has been firmly set in place until January 2027.
Leeds United came into the summer transfer window keen to raise the ceiling of the squad, while also maintaining the foundations upon which last season’s success was built. Key players have been retained, contract extensions have been handed out, and the incoming players have all arguably improved upon those they’ve replaced. And best of all? We haven’t had to throw around stupid money in order to get our deals done. The transfer fees this summer have been ridiculous. And judging by many of the ratings I’ve read today, plenty of pundits, journalists and reporters seem to equate money spent with a successful transfer window. Which, of course, is utter nonsense. Leeds, meanwhile, have done what is now becoming a real trademark under the 49ers – recruited sensibly.
They haven’t allowed themselves to get dragged into bidding wars or paid stupid money simply because a player was available. If the price hasn’t been right, Leeds have walked away and moved on. There seems to be an actual plan behind the recruitment now. Players are being signed because they fit what Leeds need, not because somebody has decided that throwing £50 million at a dodgy English striker represents “ambition”. And when the club have spent big, they’ve done it for a player they clearly believe can be part of this team for years.
Now listen, I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and admit that anxiety first crept in with reports on Monday that Mudryk was going to Spurs. I foolishly posted a tweet questioning Adam Underwood (Leeds’ Sporting Director) with reports in The Athletic suggesting there wasn’t confidence in Leeds recruiting a left-back or another attacking player. Of course, Underwood soon made me eat my words by delivering the most exciting deadline day I’ve ever experienced. So let that be a life lesson!
And it has been so lovely to sit here writing this knowing that we’re not a laughingstock or, worse, Everton. Angus Kinnear sure has his work cut out for him getting those fans back on side.
So then, have the club succeeded this summer? Well, that comes down to the individual reader and their own opinion, but I’m going on record with mine here.
Here are my Leeds United transfer window ratings for the summer of 2026.
Leeds United Summer Transfer Window Ratings
Harry Wilson – Free (Fulham)
Grade: A+
Harry Wilson was the first player through the door this summer, and it gave Leeds fans me a tingling sensation that this may just be a very exciting summer.
After a failed attempt to sign him on deadline day last summer – including a private jet sitting at Cardiff Airport that never took off – our persistence in chasing Wilson, along with Ampadu’s continued harassment, eventually helped us land a player who should prove to be a quality addition to our attack.
Wilson is capable of both scoring and creating, and arrived off the back of his best Premier League season yet. He’s comfortable picking up pockets of space out wide or drifting inside, which also creates room for Bogle to overlap, while his quality from set pieces gives Leeds another weapon.
We haven’t seen the best of him yet, but I have no doubt that signing Wilson on a free transfer will pay dividends before the end of the season. Pundits and journalists will have you believe that spending £50+ million on someone like Liam Delap is one of the deals of the summer, based on nothing other than hyperbole. Others with sense will tell you that Harry Wilson on a free is right up near the top of the list.
A great start to the summer with our primary target through the door.
Tarik Muharemović – £34 million (Sassuolo)
Grade: A+
When I first wrote about Tarik Muharemović earlier this summer, I spoke about how he had all the potential to become an excellent centre-back, but that he might need time to adjust to the quality of the Premier League.
Whilst there may yet be a drop-off in form, he already looks like he’s making me eat my words. Muharemović has performed so well throughout pre-season and the opening three games that I’m already falling in love with him and worrying about losing him.
He looks calm and composed on the ball, positions himself well to intercept or make a tackle, and looks as though he could become a real threat from set pieces. It might be ridiculously early to make any definitive judgement on him, but so far, he already looks like an upgrade on Pascal.
He really is a “Big Sexy Bosnian”.
James Trafford – £40 million (Manchester City)
Grade: A+
Ever since Leeds were relegated from the Premier League back in 2004, there has always been that stigma attached to the club that we are “a sleeping giant”. It’s an easy phrase to attach to a club the size of Leeds when you consider the untapped potential at our fingertips.
The signing of James Trafford for a club-record £40 million represented the first real sign, for me, that the giant is finally waking up. Make no mistake about it, competition for Trafford’s signature will have been fierce. Just look at the turnover of goalkeepers in the Premier League this summer. Eleven clubs have brought in a goalkeeper during this window, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue that Leeds have bought the best of the lot.
He’s young, English, already proven in England and could conceivably be our number one for the next decade. More importantly, Leeds didn’t wait around for one of the traditional “big clubs” to take him. We identified the goalkeeper we wanted, broke our transfer record and went and got him.
Trafford has already demonstrated that he could be another right near the top of the list for “best signing of the summer” – unless, of course, you read the absolute nonsense in The Athletic, where Tim Spiers has somehow ranked him 53rd, while Sorba Thomas sits 16th. Lol. In the same piece, Spiers argues that “this is an awful lot of money for someone who cost Man City £27 million a year ago”. And yet Liverpool have just spent £30 million on an 18-year-old goalkeeper from Genk. Ugh!
I’m not angry or anything. I’m just jealous that other people get paid to write such shite.
Nico Elvedi – £8.5 million (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Grade: A
Sebastiaan Bornauw was signed last summer as Leeds’ fourth-choice centre-back, so it can’t have come as much of a surprise to him that he wouldn’t see a whole lot of game time should Joe Rodon, Jaka Bijol and Pascal Struijk maintain their fitness and form.
Nevertheless, Bornauw wanted a return to Germany this summer in search of more regular football. Leeds obliged and went out and recruited an even better centre-back in Swiss international Nico Elvedi.
Elvedi brings with him a wealth of experience from his time in the Bundesliga, European competitions and international football. He’s calm and composed on the ball and ranked highly for defensive contributions during his time in Germany. It’s another piece of recruitment from Leeds that will probably go under the radar amid some of the insane transfer fees being spent elsewhere. But it’s also one that people outside the club might eventually look back on and think, “How’ve they done that?”
Elvedi made his debut in the Carabao Cup against Nottingham Forest and immediately showed why Leeds were willing to bring him in as Bornauw’s replacement. He then came in cold during the first half against Brentford following Joe Rodon’s injury and impressed again.
His experience could prove invaluable over the coming weeks, and I have absolutely no problem grading this one an A.
Michael Zetterer – £4.3 million (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Grade: C
With Illan Meslier and Karl Darlow both opting for pastures new this summer, and Lucas Perri sitting on first-team wages despite almost certainly becoming second choice, making his departure even more of a certainty, Leeds looked like they would be in need of a new number two.
Leeds turned to Michael Zetterer of Eintracht Frankfurt in their attempts to plug the gap. I find it hard to get too excited about a goalkeeper who will rarely play unless disaster strikes with James Trafford, but Zetterer played 28 games last season, including five in the Champions League, so he brings plenty of experience to our new-look goalkeeping department.
And if nothing else, at least he was able to convince former teammate Bahoya to come and join the Mighty Whites where Perri once failed with Paixão.
Then again, I haven’t a clue if he actually spoke to Bahoya. Or if they even like one another.
But this is my article, and that’s the type of nonsense shite that gets clicks, right? Am I doing it right, TEAMtalk?
Melvin Bard – Loan: £860,000 | Option: £4.3m (OGC Nice)
Grade: B
Leeds went into the summer transfer window with a left-back high on the agenda. With Gabi Gudmundsson getting injured before the start of the season, Joe Rodon going down with a hamstring injury against Brentford and a reliance on James Justin to provide cover across every defensive position, Leeds really needed to get a move on with the deadline approaching.
That need facilitated the transfer of Melvin Bard: an experienced left-back who has also played at centre-back for Nice and is regarded in France as a highly dependable full-back. Whether Bard was the top choice or not remains to be seen, but his signing on loan represents another piece of smart recruitment by the 49ers and Adam Underwood.
With experience in a top league, a leadership role at OGC Nice and a place on the fringes of the French national team, Bard should provide good competition for Gudmundsson.
If it’s a success, Leeds can trigger the inexpensive option to buy. If it doesn’t work out, he goes back to Nice. Win/win.
Jean-Mattéo Bahoya – Loan: £1.7 million | Option/Obligation: £19.7m (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Grade: A
I said it in my piece on Bahoya, but I’m ridiculously excited by this signing. I originally wrote about him on 23rd May but ultimately decided that signing him was too unrealistic. It’s fitting, then, that the subject of one of my first transfer pieces ends up becoming the last signing of the summer transfer window.
Bahoya is everything Leeds have been looking for this summer: a left-sided, right-footed attacker, a great age with huge potential, and absolutely fucking rapid. Don’t get me wrong, he’s incredibly raw and has areas of his game that he needs to improve, but he could be a huge outlet for Leeds this season. You only needed to look online at the excitement on deadline day to see how much Leeds fans wanted a signing like this.
Paraag Marathe spoke on Sky Sports last season about transfers becoming possible towards the end of the window that might not ordinarily happen earlier in the summer. I think he has been vindicated one year after Leeds missed out on Harry Wilson.
Fitness concerns over Noah Okafor, who also saw bids rejected for him on deadline day, should mean that Bahoya gets plenty of game time. And with experienced pros around him, I hope he develops into the world-beater I think he can become. I’m therefore giving this one an A. Not based on what he has achieved, but because of the excitement he brings. So much so that I forgot to take my antidepressants on Tuesday because of the anticipation over his signing.
Now, is it a coincidence that he signed after I had written up this article? Maybe.
Is it a coincidence that he signed after a writer for this site spoke to his agent on Saturday night? Almost definitely, since he didn’t respond.
But am I happy either way? Abso-fucking-lutely!
United are back, United are back!
Outgoings
If there’s one area of the window where Leeds may feel they could have done better, it’s with the outgoing business. Early in the summer, rumours were abound that Struijk, Piroe and Gnonto could all be heading for the exits. As it transpires, that was true, but only one of those players generated a meaningful transfer fee. And with only a year remaining on his contract, Struijk’s value was diminishing beyond what he was actually worth.
The bulk of Leeds’ outgoing business instead came in the form of loans and free transfers. While some of those loan deals will automatically become permanent should certain teams win promotion from the Championship, others leave the decision in the hands of the buying club. Leeds have had poor experiences with that in the past, so in the case of Lucas Perri, I wouldn’t exactly be holding my breath waiting for Torino to turn that loan into a permanent deal.
What Leeds have succeeded in doing this summer is clearing out the deadwood and removing a significant chunk of wages from the bill.
The Three Stooges (Andrea Radrizzani, Victor Orta and Angus Kinnear) inexplicably handed out huge wages to Meslier, Harrison and Gelhardt, and sources spoken to for this piece, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to protect relationships, suggest that those three players alone were earning more than £235,000 a week combined. Mental!
Clearing such huge numbers from the wage bill should, in theory, help Leeds going forward. Especially now that the Premier League’s new Squad Cost Ratio rules have come into force, making control of player wages more important than ever. So, while the lack of significant transfer fees coming in might look disappointing on the surface, there is a bigger picture here. Leeds have shifted players who were contributing very little on the pitch while taking an enormous amount out of the club every week. That has value in itself.
Illan Meslier – Free (Arsenal)
Karl Darlow – Free (Manchester United)
Lucas Perri – Loan: £860k | Option: £12m (Torino)
Isaac Schmidt – £2m (Young Boys)
Max Wöber – Mutual termination (Schalke 04)
Sebastiaan Bornauw – Loan: £860k | Option: £4.3m (Hamburger SV)
Pascal Struijk – £18m (Brighton)
Sam Byram – Free (Middlesbrough)
Jack Harrison – Less than £1m (New England Revolution)
Largie Ramazani – Loan | Obligation: £6.5m + £2m add-ons (Burnley)
Willy Gnonto – Loan: £860k | Option: £17m (Fiorentina)
Joël Piroe – Loan: £4m | Option: £10m (West Ham)
Joe Gelhardt – £6.5m (Hull City)
Where Could Leeds Have Added More?
The burden of putting the ball in the back of the net is once again placed firmly on the shoulders of Dominic Calvert-Lewin. With only Lukas Nmecha in reserve, Leeds will be hoping that both players can remain relatively injury-free. Noah Okafor can step in if required, but he’s also a valuable option out wide.
I do feel like a striker will be top of the agenda next summer.
I just hope it’s not in January.
Overall Grade: A
It’s hard to argue with the business conducted by Leeds this summer. The shite has left the building, the incomings have completely raised the ceiling, and new contracts have been handed out to key players. Leeds fans are used to dread and disappointment during transfer windows, but this has been anything but. We have retained the core of the squad that helped us to safety in comfortable fashion last season and added a mixture of quality, youth and experience on top of that.
Could we have done more to secure permanent outgoings? Of course.
Would another striker have eased concerns every time Calvert-Lewin goes to ground? Definitely.
Has this ownership group, recruitment department and Adam Underwood earned our trust? 100%.
Since taking full ownership of the club, recruitment has been phenomenal, with far more hits than duds. I have complete faith in the business Leeds have conducted this summer, and I’m genuinely excited about the direction of travel of Leeds United. A sleeping giant no longer.
Marching On Together.
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