The goalkeeping department at Leeds United has been shaken up heavily recently.
Karl Darlow has unfortunately made the controversial move to Manchester United. So, Daniel Farke is now without the ‘keeper he relied upon for so long last season.
Illan Meslier also recently left Leeds as a free agent. The Frenchman has somehow got a move to Arsenal off the back of his dismal form in West Yorkshire.
However, all this uncertainty could benefit Lucas Perri, who signed for £15.6million last summer.
Lucas Perri may have one final chance to impress
Despite their reportedly being interest in Perri from Torino, the Brazilian may opt to stick around and use pre-season to prove to Farke why he should be reinstated as the first-choice goalkeeper.
Perri lost that role back in January after a string of costly errors and was unable to win back his place. Perri did, however, look relatively solid for the most part during United’s FA Cup run.
If Perri can have a good pre-season and earn Farke’s trust, this will potentially save the 49ers a fortune. Instead of having to splash out on a new ‘keeper, Leeds could potentially only have to bring in a new backup for Perri should he get back to his best.
I’m sure he’s a far better ‘keeper than what we’ve seen. Otherwise, the 49ers wouldn’t have spent big money on him last summer. As things stand, we have a packed pre-season schedule with six games.
So with Darlow gone, Perri has been handed one last lifeline at Leeds to impress before the new season.
Graham Smyth reported that part of Darlow’s reason for leaving was that he was not guaranteed to be the first choice, with Leeds said to be planning to sign a new senior goalkeeper this summer. So Perri may not have long to impress.
If Perri wants to alter the club’s plans and prove he can cut it in the Premier League, he needs to begin pre-season exceptionally.
Lucas Perri should not be kept as a backup
This summer, Perri should either be kept and played regularly or sold. No in between.
He’s simply far too expensive an asset to be kept sitting on the bench. According to Capology, Perri earns around £62,500 a week, reinforcing this point.
So if Perri proves he’s still not capable of being our main man in the Premier League in pre-season, we should just cut our losses and sell him.
Hopefully, after just one poor season, his stock will not have dropped to the point where no one is willing to fork out to pay a respectable fee to take the 28-year-old off our hands.
If we do move Perri on, the timing of that deal is also important. We should not get rid of the Brazilian until we have at least one new ‘keeper through the door.
Because if we go into negotiations with clubs knowing we need two goalkeepers this summer following Darlow’s move away, that could potentially be used against us.
Clubs may then drive the price up of any potential targets we may have. They will be acutely aware that we would be desperate for new blood in our goalkeeping department.
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