Wilfried Gnonto: Leeds United forward puts in transfer request
Wilfried Gnonto has put in a transfer request at Leeds United as he looks to force a move from Elland Road.
Everton have had two bids rejected for the Italy International forward, who has been told he needs to play top-flight football to be considered for Euro 2024 selection.
Leeds boss Daniel Farke said on Thursday that Gnonto has been training away from the first-team squad.
He has refused to play for the club, including against West Brom on Friday.
Leeds have therefore opened disciplinary proceedings.
Leeds United boss Daniel Farke has made it clear that he doesn’t want any excuses from his side ahead of Friday night’s clash with West Brom.
It has been a tricky start to the season for the Whites, who have failed to win either of their first two Championship clashes. Leeds followed up a late draw with Cardiff City on the opening day with a late defeat to Birmingham City last weekend, and they now take on a West Brom side who will be expecting to push for promotion this seasonAhead of the clash, Leeds have been left short of bodies after allowing a number of high-earning players to leave on loan, while replacements have been few and far between.
Those replacements are expected to arrive over the next week or so, but for the West Brom clash, Farke has just seven substitutes, and two of them are goalkeepers.
Still, he wants no excuses from his men nor anyone else, telling Sky Sports: “Nothing. It’s not my topic before the game, and we don’t need sympathy. We don’t need to feel sorry for ourselves, no excuse, and it’s 11 against 11.
“I also have five outfield players on the bench and I can’t bring more than five players on, so no excuses, I’m just concentrating on being the best we can be with this team, and we won’t let our standards drop. We want a good performance. Before the game, it’s not the topic for me.”
Asked what he wants to see from his men against the Baggies, Farke continued: “It was a really strong performance against a really experienced side. Definitely, we need lots intensity on the ball tonight to move the ball quickly, and with good structure. We need a complex performance to win the points, and that’s what we will try to do.”
Wilfried Gnonto has put in a transfer request at Leeds United as he looks to force a move from Elland Road.
Everton have had two bids rejected for the Italy International forward, who has been told he needs to play top-flight football to be considered for Euro 2024 selection.
Angus Kinnear has said loan departures have saved the club £30million to be “reinvested in players who want to play for Leeds United”, according to the LUFC Supporters Trust.
The trust reported on their website Friday (18 August) from a meeting they had with the Whites chief executive the night before, where they put questions to him regarding the concerns fans have over the club’s current situation, with Kinnear claiming that the extensive loan departures were unavoidable as relegation release clauses had to put into contracts at the time of signing.
According to the Supporters Trust he said that the previous regime “simply could not have funded the club in the event of relegation” if the 49ers takeover had subsequently not gone ahead, forcing Leeds United to insert wage-reduction clauses, with the trade-off of the exit clauses coming at the “insistence” of players and their agents
It has become clear how the clauses got into the contracts but the reasoning for why hardly paints the club or the ownership in a great light.
Leeds United only escaped relegation a year earlier on the final day, so if the club had gone down then it appears there would have been an even worse situation than there is now.
Since the ability to survive in the second tier apparently relies exclusively the presence of the new 49ers hierarchy then it makes the fact that neither side had a deal lined up prior to 28 May even more alarming, with the belated announcement this summer and even later ratification pushing all sorts of crucial work back.
Who exactly would have known what details at which point is difficult to discern, but the current situation being presented as unavoidable suggests a lot of the bullish talk earlier in the summer never had a chance of being successful.
New chairman Paraag Marathe is not new to the club so should have at least had an idea the difficulties were on the cards, even if he wasn’t directly involved in contract negotiations at the time.
Kinnear himself, as the one key figure in the hierarchy whose status has remained constant throughout the handover from Radrizzani to the 49ers likely had as much awareness as anybody still at the club.
So if there is now £30m sitting there ready to strengthen the squad then fans will want to see it used, and if they are unable to thanks to profit and sustainability rules it will be little benefit.
Clearly relegation is never going to be comfortable, but Kinnear’s answers here suggest a short-term outlook where the key figures were hoping for the best and knew all along that the drop was going to be a struggle like the one currently being experienced.
And amid a general public silence for weeks at the top of the club it seems unlikely that the CEO’s response is going to comfort many in a fanbase that is seeing a potential promotion push disappear into the distance.
In other Leeds United news, a BBC pundit has pointed towards January as “pivotal” for Daniel Farke to rescue the current situation.
