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Noah Okafor enjoyed an impressive first season at Leeds United last year. The Swiss winger was the 49ers’ marquee attacking signing; they forked out £18million to sign the winger from AC Milan. Okafor’s season started slowly in terms of output. But he was always a useful outlet for Daniel Farke’s side. United always looked like a worse team when he was not on the pitch. The second half of the season is when the floodgates really opened for Okafor. He ended his debut Premier League campaign with eight goals and one assist in 28 appearances. However, the 26-year-old will surely be relieved to hear the news that one of his former AC Milan teammates will not be joining him at Elland Road. Noah Okafor to breathe a sigh of relief as ambitious Rafael Leao move ruled out To everybody’s surprise, it was reported that Leeds were offered a chance to sign Rafael Leao this summer. The Whites ultimately had to pass on a deal due to the finances involved. It’s hard to put into words just how incredible this signing would have been for us. But if there’s one man who will be relieved that the move did not materialise, it’s Okafor. At AC Milan, Okafor found game time hard to come by. Partly because he was behind Leao in the pecking order. In the 2023/24 season, Okafor made 28 Serie A appearances, but only six of those were starts. The season after, Okafor was loaned to Napoli midway through the campaign as he continued to struggle to break into the starting XI. Part of the reason Okafor will have wanted to move to Leeds would have been to step out of Leao’s shadow. So to see the Portuguese winger arrive at Elland Road just a year later will have been a terrifying prospect for him. Leeds could do with another winger this summer I think we all know that signing a player of Leao’s quality is unrealistic for us at this stage. Hopefully the 49ers are working on attaining a more realistic target before the window closes. With the amount of knocks Okafor picks up, as well as the fact he struggled to complete full games for us last season, signing another quality winger would seem to make a lot of sense. Igor Paixao would appear to be a more realistic dream target for Leeds. The Brazilian looks certain to leave Marseille this summer. However, that does not guarantee he will end up in West Yorkshire. Aston Villa are also said to be interested in Paixao. Preferably, any winger we sign would be able to play both sides if needed. If Harry Wilson picked up an injury, I wouldn’t be enthralled by the prospect of Dan James starting five or six games in a row for us. Leeds got lucky for the most part when it came to avoiding big injuries to key players last season. Hopefully we sign enough quality players to bolster the squad where an injury to one of our starting wingers wouldn’t immediately make us a far worse side.