The final day of the mid-season transfer window has come and gone without Leeds United spending a penny to strengthen the squad, leading to a lively debate amongst the fans on social media.

Before it even opened Daniel Farke had been hinting that this transfer window was likely to be a quiet one, but more than a few of our fanbase were clamouring for new faces up front, number ten, full back and even goalkeeper. Yet the powers that be at the club were determined that they would only add to the squad if they could land players who were better than what we already had.

With several players returning from injury in recent weeks only Patrick Bamford is still making use of the treatment room, so there is no apparent need to add depth to the squad as cover, and quantity rather than quality would be the order of the day.

One position where we might be lacking is a ‘number 10’ to unlock the packed defences we have occasionally struggled to unlock, so one name suggested was Aston Villa’s Emmy Buendía. The Arginine was the star man of Farke’s second promotion season at Norwich, which might have tempted him to come to Leeds, but in the end he opted for top flight football in Germany, with a loan to Bayer Leverkusen.

The one area of the squad where a backup might be needed is up front, due to the aforementioned Bamford injury. Yesterday Leeds were trying to seal a loan deal for Southampton’s Cameron Archer, but that is believed to have fallen through because the Saints wanted us to commit to an obligation to sign him permanently if we went up, a clause we weren’t going to commit to.

Archer is a proven goalscorer at Championship level (with 18 goals in 40 games during loan spells at Preston and Middlesbrough) so he would have been handy for the rest of the current season, but his record at the top level is less impressive, and Leeds would prefer to look or better options in the summer if we do get promoted.

But there were a couple of other good Championship goalscorers on the move yesterday who we could have looked at. Middlesbrough’s Latte Lath is on his way to MLS club Atlanta United, and Southampton’s Adam Armstrong has gone to West Brom on loan. We know all too much about his record in the Championship as he found the net on all three of the occasions when the club’s met last season, and we now have to face him at least once during the rest of the current campaign.

We did at least manage to rebuff a bid of £10m from Real Betis for Matteo Joseph, though it would have been unlikely we’d have done the deal even if we had managed to land an incoming striker. The offer shows how highly Joseph is regarded in the country he has represented at youth level, and if he can start to find the net for the first team on a regular basis he will command a much higher fee when he gets to the peak of his career.

The sum total of yesterday’s transfer activity was the sale of two 20 year olds for ‘undisclosed’ (and obviously relatively small) fees. Sonny Perkins regularly played alongside Joseph in our youth teams, but has now gone to Leyton Orient. The highlight of his Leeds career was his late equaliser that kept us in the FA Cup at Cardiff two years ago, but he clearly isn’t going to make the breakthrough as a regular in the league.

His loan spell in East London has apparently been impressive, which is why the O’s have converted it into a permanent deal, but it may well be that League One is his natural level. The other outward transfer saw defender Jeremiah Mullen returning to his native Scotland, as he signed for Dunfermline. In addition, we did of course loan out Crew and Gelhardt at the start of the window.

And so today the debate on social media began about the wisdom of our lack of transfer activity, with many pointing to the signings made by our three main rivals in the race for promotion. Burnley were clearly in need of extra firepower, and yesterday they signed winger Marcus Edwards from Sporting CP, to add to their earlier capture of Ashley Barnes.

Sheffield United now have defender Rob Holding on loan from Crystal Palace until the end of the season. And they also picked out two wingers with the help of artificial intelligence, in the shape Jefferson Caceres and Christian Nwachukwu. This pair will certainly be handy if they can trouble opposition defences as much as the matchday commentators.

While Sunderland have signed highly rated midfielder Jérémy Le Fée on loan from Roma, and young Liverpool striker Jayden Danns will also be with them for the rest of the season. And they have also made a permanent signing in the shape of striker Wilson Isidor from Russian club Zenit St Petersburg.

All of which has led to the 49ers copping a bit of flack from some of our fanbase, with the kindest suggestions being that they have gambled by not adding to the squad while others have improved theirs. Others say they haven’t learned the lessons from doing the same this time last year, and some critics suggest that keeping their hands in their pockets is evidence that they are only in it for the money.

But others have pointed out that we still have the best squad in the Championship, and think that none of the above players signed by our three main rivals would be likely to make our first choice starting eleven. And I’m going to come down on that side of the argument, as we should still have enough to get ourselves over the line, and we need to start thinking ahead to next season.

With the Financial Fair Play rules limiting the amount of losses clubs can make over a three year period, we need to avoid spending more than we need right now, to keep as much in hand as we can in order to strengthen the squad if we do go up. Nothing is guaranteed, but as we now have a five point lead over third place and a much better goal difference, on balance I think the 49ers have made the right call.

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