Daniel Farke is the driving force behind Leeds United’s efforts to keep one of their periphery players this summer.
Once the chaos of last summer subsided, Farke established a fairly stable group of starters during his first season in command, and as a result, minutes were scarce for many players.
Charlie Cresswell, Joe Gelhardt, Mateo Joseph, and Jamie Shackleton are just a few of the squad’s younger players who may have felt dissatisfied with their playing time.
Cresswell has already been linked with a £3 million move to a European club, and Gelhardt could also look to leave. Their last two league starts occurred in August.
On the other hand, Joseph is likely to be given a more important position next season after performing admirably off the bench multiple times. He is the type of player that Leeds can build their team around.
What is Jamie Shackleton’s stance on signing a new deal with Leeds?
Leeds confirmed their retained list at the end of last week, and there were some fascinating decisions on it.
Sam Byram was likely the least surprising, given his quantity of appearances resulted him a new one-year agreement, which is good business if he is not overly reliant.
When Cody Drameh returned from his loan spell at Birmingham City, he was surprised to be given new terms. However, this was done to ensure Leeds got compensation if he joins a new team.
Other surprises on the list include Liam Cooper and Shackleton, who are both in talks for new contracts despite their paucity of starts last season.
Cooper’s future appeared to be set, but it is suddenly uncertain. According to the Athletic, Farke is the main factor behind Shackleton’s new contract offer.
Shackleton played only 676 minutes of league action last season, with his last start coming in October. Injuries severely affected the second half of his campaign.
With that stated, Shackleton has yet to sign a contract to stay at Leeds, and he does have offers elsewhere, though it is unclear at what level.
According to the article, Shackleton wants to play more minutes next season, therefore if Leeds wants to challenge for promotion again, he will have to find elsewhere.
Last season, Ross McCormack described Shackleton as ‘amazing’.
Regardless of how his season ended, Shackleton experienced a significant resurgence over the first two months of 2023/24.
He started several games at both left and right defense, earning plaudits from Farke and former striker Ross McCormack.
One of his better performances came in a 3-0 victory over Watford back in September, which McCormack described as ‘amazing’.
“Yeah, you see it with a lot of teams these days; it’s an important aspect of how clubs want to play, how they use their full-backs. And I think Shackleton and Byram were excellent tonight,” he told BBC Radio Leeds.
