Leeds United’s Championship impossibility and pre-season caution – Graham Smyth on the new season

Beyond Liam Cooper, Luke Ayling, Dan James, Georginio Rutter, a few youngsters and any new signings, the rest of the squad still feels like a moveable feast. As many as five in the starting XI at Tynecastle on Sunday have been the subject of transfer talk this summer and even as the new season dawns, their departures remain far from inconceivable.

Then there’s Willy Gnonto, Tyler Adams and Jack Harrison, assets prized by Leeds as much as the vultures circling but yet to swoop.

How Leeds United as a group of footballers look right now is not how Leeds United will look come September 1 and that’s not just because Daniel Farke is in the process of moulding them into something more closely resembling his footballing image. There will almost inevitably be a departure or two yet. There will absolutely have to be new recruits.

Long before Rutter signalled to the bench that all was not well in the first half of the win against Hearts, months prior to Patrick Bamford reaching for his hamstring in the second half of the same game, it was apparent that a centre forward would be needed. Bamford, in his manager’s words, has nothing to prove in the Championship.

“We don’t have to speak about his experience, about his quality,” said Farke after the Nottingham Forest friendly.

“The most important topic for Patrick is that he stays fit. If he’s fit and also full of confidence I'm pretty sure he's capable of scoring several goals for us.”

Four days later Farke was expressing his hope that Bamford’s latest quest for full fitness will not be a long one. Interestingly, a centre forward was not one of the positions the German has specifically listed in his several transfer business briefings with the media, until Friday’s pre-match press conference.

You could easily detect a sense of Farke being more concerned about strengthening elsewhere, because in Rutter, Bamford and Mateo Joseph he has a trio of options for the number nine role. The aftermath of Tynecastle might well change that.

But cast your eye across the pitch and the potential for transience is so evident. Illan Meslier could yet be sold, due to his ambition and the profit he would generate. In the back line Pascal Struijk is a reported target for Club Brugge.

There have been suggestions of interest elsewhere in Leo Hjelde. Sam Byram’s signing feels inevitable, it’s just not a done deal yet. Someone made some very loud want-away noise about Junior Firpo earlier in the summer, citing a desire for a ‘new experience’ although that was before a frustratingly familiar experience of the Thorp Arch treatment room beckoned him. Ayling is a fixture, he’ll stay but will Cody Drameh, without a new deal?

In the midfield there’s Adams, whose Instagram account made a point of stating ‘back soon’ shortly after Farke talked about a September return, whose stock remains at a big league high despite relegation and whose contract appears to hold a clause.

Out wide you have Gnonto and Summerville, both of whom would realise profit, and Sinisterra, who if fit and firing would make an attractive proposition for clubs in top divisions.

The picture might look settled on the surface, with no active bids to speak of, but it’s somewhat of a magic eye, with moving parts yet to reveal themselves and a fresh image still to come into focus. Right now, the possibilities are dizzying, so fixing your eye on the football might be wise.

Getting carried away on what you see in pre-season is a fool’s errand of course – Leeds are yet to meet a Championship level test, friendlies just aren’t real and the gulf in quality against Hearts was painful at times – but you can see Farke’s fingerprints.

Patience in possession, players learning again to love the feeling of the ball at their feet, quick interplay, positional rotation and chances being created. Leeds are easy on the eye once more and Farke knows how to turn aesthetically pleasing football into points.

What he’s cooking at Leeds could be Michelin-starred, so long as he’s working with the right ingredients by the time the season hits month two.

Farke is where you would hang your hat right now, simply because he has been there, done it and done it in style. The way Leeds work the ball out from the back, the way they mix it up with long balls over the top into the path of strikers and the way they look to counter with pace will lead to opportunities for goals and points. Against Hearts they scored two good goals, one of which was disallowed, and could have scored a hatful.

How well they hold onto the ball, how tightly they strangle games, how many chances they make and how many they take will be decided not only by the work he continues to do at Thorp Arch but the work done in offices at Elland Road and on phone calls to agents and other clubs by Nick Hammond, Grétar Steinsson and Angus Kinnear.

Ethan Ampadu and Karl Darlow have the look of good, solid, transfer window work but they’re just a start. Paraag Marathe has promised aggression but Leeds fans know the difference between talk and action. There’s time yet to show it, the window has a month to run and as Farke said on Sunday, judge them when all the business has been ticked off.

In an ideal world, that would bring a striker, a number 10, a central midfielder – or two if Adams leaves – a right-sided centre-back and a left-back to Elland Road in the next four weeks.

Until we know what Farke is working with, it’s simply impossible to predict what he will be able to come up with. Armed with this squad, as it is, you could be quietly confident of a competitive season. If going back up at the first attempt is a priority, as it should be, then Marathe will want his manager to go into the Championship tooled up to the teeth.

The English second tier is not a division in which you can write off a chunk of games and a good start is important – Farke has recognised this – but August 6 will not present Leeds in their final form. The trick will be to keep things simmering nicely for a month, until he knows exactly what he can throw into the mix and start to bring a promotion bid to the boil.

If it’s good news you want then the fact that Leeds, if a little undercooked, are not exactly raw – a short pre-season is still a pre-season and you would think there is sufficient quality within the ranks to get the job done on the opening day.

No matter where they are in their development under the new manager, however, the Championship is upon them. Here it comes, ready or not.