Leeds United: Why Ethan Ampadu is vital to Leeds

Transcript

00:00 Another player in form for Leeds United is Ethan Ampadu as well.

00:04 Is he perhaps becoming one of Leeds' most important players throughout the squad,

00:08 not just in a goal-scoring sense, but just his role up and down the pitch in the middle as well?

00:15 Yeah, amazing. I mean, you talk about brilliant signings in terms of not costing the earth,

00:22 and he's right at the top, I mean, £7 million.

00:25 From Chelsea, that's staggering when you think about it now,

00:27 and especially when you look at his age, it's quite difficult, it's quite easy to forget,

00:31 sort of, when you've watched him play that you think he's probably a bit older,

00:33 but still only 23. I mean, he's only going to get better, really.

00:35 It's quite funny, actually, with Ampadu, because I covered the Leeds players'

00:39 children's hospital visit over Christmas, where Ethan Ampadu and Joe Roden both were at,

00:43 and they were getting asked by all the kids questions and stuff, and some of the kids were

00:47 saying to them, 'How many goals have you both scored?' And of course, neither of them have

00:50 scored at all, so it was a little bit... I mean, they took it in good spirit, and it was all,

00:53 like, heart and fun and whatever. But actually, we did actually ask Ethan about it afterwards,

00:57 and he sort of said, 'No, to be honest, adding goals to a game is something that I want to do.'

01:01 And he's not an attacking midfielder, he's not a number 10, is he? He's basically more or less a

01:06 CDM, who can also obviously play centre-back, as we saw at the weekend, but it's only going to help

01:10 him as a player, make him better as a player, and help Leeds as a team if he scores goals.

01:14 And obviously, he waits for so long, and then he goes and scores two. So, brilliant stuff. Obviously,

01:17 while the captain's armband as well, he just looks like a natural captain, really. I mean,

01:22 Pascal's done fantastically at the moment when he's come in instead of Kuper, but Pascal's sort

01:27 of said himself that he's not like a natural leader, if you like, sort of thing in terms of

01:30 vocal. He sort of sets the standard for his performance, as if that makes sense. But Ampadu,

01:35 he comes across as a real captain, and hopefully he's there for many, many years to come at Leeds.

01:39 I mean, in terms of best player, most important player, yeah, I mean, he'd be right up there,

01:43 especially because, you know, you can play him, obviously, mainly in midfield, but you can drop

01:46 back into centre-back. He has literally played every minute of every game, apart from coming

01:50 off towards the end of one of the games over Christmas. So, that says it all. I mean,

01:54 people will look at Somerville, really, I think, as the sort of, you know, prized asset, if you

01:58 like, in terms of the goals and assists he gets, and also Lutera as well. But, I mean, Ampadu is

02:03 so important, and, you know, Leeds have got a gem of a player there. Let's hope he gets us scores

02:07 a few more.