Alfonso Pedraza ⭑ From A-Z since '92
If joining Leeds was a surprise to Pedraza, he didn't show it, striding purposely into Huddersfield's half and forcing a save from 25 yards as if Championship football was easy.
This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme. Or you can keep going below, with me and almost the biggest cash purchase of the 2010s.
Alfonso Pedraza felt like a mistake. Not the way Cameron Stewart and Jimmy Kebe felt like mistakes, but more like how Pablo Hernandez felt like a mistake. You looked at him tearing down the left wing with the ball, aiming pinpoint crosses. You checked his Wikipedia page, his pedigree with Villareal. You checked his YouTube highlights and his stats. And you watched him again. And you tried very hard looking for the problem. And you felt weird about not being able to find one.
And that was the feeling with Alfonso Pedraza, that he was much better than anybody expected so somebody must have messed up by letting him on loan to Leeds. Any moment Villareal were going to spot the donkey they thought they'd sent our way still lurching about their training ground and ask why they hadn't seen Alfonso lately. Alf was in Yorkshire, which seemed to have Garry Monk so bemused he could hardly bring himself to put Pedraza on the pitch. Maybe he didn't want Villareal to spot his highlights on Football on 5.
2016/17 was a confusing season for Leeds United but in ways that were, considering the decade, at least original. Chairman Massimo Cellino's refusal to work with any more English coaches, after his experience of Scotsman Steve Evans, had him scouring Europe all summer and picking Garry Monk, from Bedford, as his new manager/watermelon. He also picked Andrea Radrizzani as his new part-owner/escape plan, concocting some wild scheme where if Leeds got promoted, they'd stay 50/50, but if Leeds stayed down, the club was Radrizzani's. Adding to the confusion was Cellino's offer to fans of a 25 per cent rebate on season tickets if the team didn't make the play-offs. Most confusing of all was the team itself, which was suddenly somehow good.
In January Leeds were 3rd in the Championship and people at Elland Road were panicking. This was an opportunity, after more than five years of post-Grayson hopelessness, and the club — whoever was running it — couldn't afford to miss. But there were problems. There was an embarrassing defeat to Sutton in the fourth round of the FA Cup, when Monk seemed to be making a point about his squad by picking a mix of reserves and agent Willie McKay's family. In the league, the actual first team's problem was being good, but not great. Chris Wood was defying boo-boys the best way, by scoring goals. Pablo Hernandez was a revelation. So was Pontus Jansson, part of a defence good enough to have a song. But in the centre of midfield Eunan O'Kane and Liam Bridcutt were an over cautious pairing and Kalvin Phillips and Ronaldo Vieira too young, while out wide Kemar Roofe, Souleymane Doukara, Stuart Dallas and Hadi Sacko couldn't do enough between them to make Wood look less alone in the box.