Leeds United welcomed four new faces to Elland Road in January during a transfer window which seemed incredibly significant in safeguarding the future of the football club.

The Whites currently sit just one point outside the relegation places and it was clear that the squad needed bolstering in all areas, so Jesse Marsch duly added an attacker, a midfielder and two defenders to quell those issues.

It leaves his squad in a better place than they were before the World Cup, but they were forced to say goodbye to one of those figures who earned cult hero status for their role in the return to the Premier League in 2020.

Mateusz Klich had starred for Marcelo Bielsa, and alongside Kalvin Phillips embodied everything for which the legendary Argentine stood. He was hard-working and tough-tackling but had enough finesse to contribute to the transition too.

Although his game-time had diminished, with the Poland international not making a league start this season and featuring for only 266 top-flight minutes, he still arguably yielded more influence and minutes than Adam Forshaw, who remained at the club.

The 31-year-old also used to be an important figure for the Yorkshire outfit, but a string of injuries meant that he struggled to ever recapture his past displays, in turn seeing him feature for only 157 league minutes so far this season.

Even now the Whites are struggling to comprehend exactly what his latest ailment is, as injury expert Ben Dinnery claimed: “It’s a very difficult situation for Leeds and Forshaw. The surgery that he had back in 2019 kept him on the sidelines for the best part of 18 months and it was highly disappointing.

“He’s had his fair share of injuries since that problem too and whenever he seems to be able to establish himself in that starting lineup he picks up an injury. The concern comes from not being able to identify the underlying cause – Leeds can’t address the issue if medical staff are confused about what is causing it.”

With a case which is so perplexing that it seemingly cannot be fixed, it begs the question as to why he remains and Klich’s exit was sanctioned.

Even at their best, which for Forshaw was the 2018/19 season and for his former team-mate was the following campaign , the two are incomparable.

The now-DC United maestro earned a 7.07 average rating during that year, playing a huge role in their comfortable Championship triumph as he scored six goals, set up five and recorded 1.8 key passes and 1.9 tackles per game (via Sofascore).

Meanwhile, in the campaign prior, Forshaw could only muster a 6.91 rating whilst not offering a single goal contribution. He did record 2.2 tackles per game, which is not even that much of an improvement on his Polish counterpart (via Sofascore).

To compound this further, as of last year, the former Everton academy graduate’s £20k-per-week salary far outweighed Klich’s £7.7k-per-week. 

With both players past their peaks, surely it made sense to retain the better-performing option of the two and instead ditch the injury-ridden financial burden who has little to offer nowadays.