'Let's not kid ourselves' - Ex-Leeds United man on position upgrade needed and Red Bull warning

Leeds have got a decent amount of players as it is. It's more about consistency. They don't need a slow start next season, don't need a wobble to get into some sort of form and they don't need to fall off a cliff at times of the season such as when they had reeled in the league leaders like they did with Leicester City.

Consistency is key. Consistency is absolutely key and that's what gets you out of this division. As a collective, Ipswich Town did it and Leicester did it as a collective with a very, very hefty squad with a lot of Premier League nous and Southampton did it with a mixture of both.

With Leeds, you could look around and say 'well we need this, we need that.; I don't know what will happen with Joe Rodon but if you get someone like Rodon and then Pascal Struijk, if you get Ethan Ampadu and Glen Kamara playing together and you get that front three/four firing then that's a front four/five that would frighten most teams.

The players will be a year older so maybe they will be a year more experienced and maybe they are a year more battle-hardened that helps them get over the line. I think Rodon has been great and he has dovetailed very well with what was already there. I think they need a better full back than Junior Firpo. Or maybe not 'better' but certainly more consistent.

As for the other positions, if you offered those two midfielders and the front four/five that Leeds have got, most top-of-the-table teams would go for that so let's not kid ourselves that Leeds United need to dump a load of players to get better. They just need to make sure that whoever takes them there ie Daniel Farke gets that consistency out of them.

I do see it slightly different in being a post playing player. A manager gets the good, the bad and the ugly of the whole thing because that's just part of a manager's remit.

But if you look at the way Leeds were set up in the play-off final, if they were more clinical and created better chances then that's a different final altogether. But that's all much in the 'what if' camp. That was nothing to do with the manager and it's nothing to do with tactics, absolutely nothing to do with tactics. It was about creating chances.

You might say that is tactics - and it is to a certain extent. But the 'big game players' that Leeds have didn't turn up, they didn't turn up on the day. They turned up for 95 per cent of the season/98 per cent of the season. But once you get to the play-offs that means nothing by the end of it because it becomes totally redundant when you don't turn up for the biggest game that actually literally decides whether you get in the Premier League or not.

With who stays and who goes, there's a connection between Crysencio Summerville and Arne Slot at Liverpool via Feyenoord. And with everything, obviously it all comes down to price. Any club is a selling club if someone comes in with ridiculous bids for those types of players.

Archie Gray is still a kid very much with his career in its infancy and still very much learning his trade. Another season the Championship won't set him back any much, unless the money talks. But I've got no real inkling. Whether this bit of sponsorship from Red Bull helps with it all and the finances, I don't know. Maybe one or two players will go but we don't know and time will tell.

Regarding the Red Bull news, you absolutely need that investment. There are naturally fears from fans about a 'Red Bull Leeds' and such like but without sounding naive, you have got to take what these people are saying at face value until actions suggest otherwise and I couldn't see it happening at Leeds. You have got to trust the person running the football club and what they are doing

I am more than open-minded to know that what's said now could be completely void in a season. But that would be one hell of an audacious move to turn a club like this into something like that because as we saw with Salzburg, there was a huge faction of their fan base that were obviously stupefied by what had happened.

Chairman Paraag Marathe has been very quick to say about these places being temples and something you can't really mess with and the fact that is a minority stake does mean that until they flex muscles and say 'here is more money' then they won't be able to have a majority say. They will have to go with what the majority rule is.

Paraag initially bought a minority stake but he said that was done with the intent of taking over whereas with the Red Bull one it is a minority stake that is happy being a minority stake.

If it stays like that then great. If it doesn't, then to say that would be a battle for hearts and minds of fans would be an understatement because Leeds United's fans are very defined in their uniqueness and also defined in their identity of what Leeds United is. It would take a very brave man or cooperation to mess with that.