A bold new signing could help Daniel Farke and Leeds survive the 2025/26 Premier League
The last two seasons have proved that staying in the Premier League is harder than ever and as Daniel Farke attempts to end that run of immediate relegations back to the Championship, a 20-year-old striker available on the loan market who was previously valued at over £100 million could be just the boost Leeds need
If the last six failures in the Premier League by promoted sides can be boiled down to two problems it’s not scoring enough goals and conceding too many, as they’ve averaged (not combined for) a goal difference of -39 compared to 17th place each season and unsurprisingly the differential in ‘goals for’ makes up almost almost half (47%) of that.
That sounds a bit simplistic – these are the two main aims of football – and it’s not for the want of trying. After all, Cameron Archer has been signed twice by newly promoted sides in the last two seasons for an aggregate £33m, and totalled six top-flight goals in return.
But the reality that scoring 80 or even 90 goals in a Championship season isn’t a guarantee you’ll scrape much more than half the total of the next best established side is one that Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland must all face next season and with a proven Premier League striker on the market, the Whites would be daft not to at least test out the possibility of signing Evan Ferguson.
The Irishman has fallen far from his peak two years ago when Brighton slapped an eye-watering £120m price tag on him amid interest from Tottenham, and after a goalless disaster on loan at West Ham (though he’s far from alone in that regard) the Seagulls are again looking to give Ferguson game time elsewhere next season.
Still extremely young for a Premier League striker, Ferguson has four years remaining on his Brighton contract so there’s no rush to write him off just yet, and he could be the striker Daniel Farke needs to spearhead Mission Impossible: Top Flight Survival.
Evan Ferguson possesses all the tools to succeed at Leeds United
The best Ferguson in Premier League history (of the last 10 years), it’s not hard to see why the Irishman caused such a stir when he burst onto the scene for Brighton in 2023.
Ferguson’s clinical finishing and presence in the air instantly earned him comparisons to Harry Kane and he’s outperformed his expected goals every season at Brighton even as his goalless streak in club football will be well over 250 days by the start of the 2025/26 campaign; unless he goes on loan to Major League Soccer next week.
So good at engaging the opposition centre-halves, finding a space in the penalty to receive the ball in the air or on the ground and then rifling it past a helpless opposition goalkeeper, and brilliant at hold-up play even at a deceptive 6’0”, Ferguson offers any team that isn’t West Ham guaranteed goals if they can provide even a smidgen of service. Just as importantly, he boasts a pretty decent record of five goals in 22 for Ireland having made his debut less than a month after his 18th birthday.
His games for the national team are a better indication of the challenges Ferguson will be facing this coming season than smashing two past League 2 Grimsby Town in the FA Cup, and Ferguson has coped admirably with the pressure of carrying the weight of Ireland’s footballing hopes and dreams on his shoulders.
Leeds are after a striker to compete with Joel Piroe and Callum Wilson has been linked to Yorkshire as it looks less and less likely the 33-year-old will continue his stay on Tyneside now his contract has expired. With all due respect to Coventry’s finest, Ferguson would be an upgrade on Wilson in every area – if Farke can beat off fierce competition to land him.
Can Leeds United fight off Celtic and Everton interest?
It’s certainly not without risk even as a loan – Ferguson has endured a rotten run of injuries in the last year and a half, missing five months in 2024 with a cruciate ligament tear and then all of January 2025 with an ankle problem. Ferguson never really got back up to speed at West Ham but they’ve ruined much more established careers than his at striker (Sebastien Haller, Javier Hernandez, Emmanuel Emenike, Nikica Jelavic and John Carew spring to mind).
Leeds face stiff competition with one of Ferguson’s boyhood clubs Celtic also interested and able to offer Champions League football, while Everton are after the Irishman and could provide more stable environment and the opportunity to blossom under David Moyes like so many strikers before him (including some player called Wayne).
However, the Whites could almost certainly offer more gametime with only Piroe, who’s never played in the Premier League, for competition and the prospect of signing a player with such sky-high potential is one Farke should throw everything at.
