Leeds United ensured that they brought in several players with experience in the Premier League when they were promoted from the Championship last year.
The Whites knew that it would be a difficult task to avoid relegation, as the last six teams to come up had gone straight back down, and they signed a few stars who already knew what it took to deliver at the top level.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin, James Justin, and Sean Longstaff all arrived with bounds of Premier League experience, whilst Lukas Nmecha joined from Wolfsburg after playing for Manchester City, Preston, and Middlesbrough earlier in his career.
Signing a core of players with Premier League experience allowed Daniel Farke and the recruitment team to be more creative with other signings, and they hit the jackpot with Anton Stach.
The club paid £17.4m to sign the 6 foot 4 central midfielder from Hoffenheim, with no prior experience in England, and he emerged as a star in his debut season.
Leeds United are closing in on deal for Bundesliga star
Stach, who scored five goals in the Premier League, was able to adapt to the physicality of English football after coming over from Germany, as he won 53% of his total duels and 62% of his aerial duels across 29 appearances in the division.
Now, the West Yorkshire outfit are looking at a player who could arrive at Elland Road this summer to follow in the 27-year-old giant’s footsteps.
According to The Leeds Press, Leeds United are pursuing a deal to sign Nico Elvedi from Borussia Monchengladbach in the summer transfer window.
The report claims that the club want to sign two new centre-backs after the departure of Pascal Struijk to Brighton & Hove Albion, and they are now closing in on a deal to bring the Bundesliga defender to Yorkshire.
It reveals that the Whites are currently in ongoing negotiations with the German side, having already seen an offer of £7m rejected, and that a deal worth £8.5m is expected to be agreed.
The outlet states that Leeds have accelerated their interest in the experienced star because Coventry City are also looking at him as a possible signing.
How Nico Elvedi can emulate Anton Stach at Leeds
It is hard to tell how players will adapt to the physicality of English football when they have no prior experience in the league, but Stach is living proof that players from the Bundesliga can make the transition.
The German star won 58% of his duels and 57% of his ground duels in the Bundesliga for Hoffenheim in the 2024/25 campaign before winning 53% of his battles and 61% of his aerial duels for Leeds in the Premier League.
Elvedi’s performances in the Bundesliga for Gladbach and at the World Cup for Switzerland over the past nine months suggest that he has the physical attributes to come in and follow in Stach’s footsteps.
Nico Elvedi | 25/26 Bundesliga | 2026 World Cup |
|---|---|---|
Appearances | 33 | 4 |
Pass accuracy | 92% | 91% |
Tackles + interceptions per game | 2.5 | 1.3 |
Clearances per game | 8.2 | 7.5 |
Ground duel success rate | 67% | 63% |
Aerial duel success rate | 56% | 88% |
His duel success rates across both competitions for club and country suggest that he has the potential to be a dominant player for Leeds in the same way that Stach has been since his move from Hoffenheim.
The fact that his dominance in duels has carried over to the international stage at the World Cup suggests that he would be able to handle the transition to playing in the Premier League, as he has shown that he can deal with players from across the globe at the highest level.
Elvedi would also arrive at Elland Road as an experienced player who should be expected to hit the ground running, because he has been there and done it at the elite level, playing 318 matches in the Bundesliga.
The 29-year-old star has scored 19 goals in 364 appearances for Gladbach in all competitions in his career, including one goal in 15 outings in the Champions League.
This latest update on the club’s pursuit of the defender states that he is not a direct replacement for Struijk, as he is not a naturally left-footed player, but his form for club and country shows that he can be a useful player for Farke in the other two centre-back roles.
He is a dominant star who is consistently in the right place at the right time to make clearances, leading the Bundesliga in clearances (270) last term, which is why he could be such a brilliant signing and be the club’s next version of Stach.
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