Graham Smyth's Leeds United season player ratings as Championship's best attackers miss top spot

The league-leading Whites have scored an incredible 76 goals in 38 games this season, 23 more than joint-top Sheffield United and 24 more than third-placed Burnley. For further context, Leeds have doubled midtable Millwall's goal tally for the 38 games played in the English second tier. There have been 3-0 wins, 4-0 wins and even a 7-0 rout of Cardiff City. Joel Piroe is one of two players to have hit double figures already and at least two others are threatening to join that select group over the final eight games. As many of six Leeds men have already hit double figures for goals and assists.

Yet according to the YEP player ratings, averaged out for the season so far, the top dog in Daniel Farke's squad is not one of their creative forces but a defender. In fact three of the top four in the list, compiled from individual player ratings given out for each game in the campaign, occupy positions in Farke's back line. While Burnley undoubtedly boast the most miserly defence in the division having conceded just 11 times, Leeds have only shipped 25 themselves and considering the far more attacking nature of their play compared with the Clarets that is no mean feat.

When it comes to Leeds' array of attacking talent, some would point to Tottenham Hotspur loanee Manor Solomon as the best player at Farke's disposal but for sheer consistency across the season he has been put in the shade by another. Solomon's initial struggle to shake off the rust is reflected in his average rating but once he settled into Farke's side and found his rhythm the Israel international has shown he has a technical ability that is superior to that of most other players in the league.

Now for the caveats. In 99 per cent of cases a rating is only given to a player featuring for 10 minutes or more of regulation time in a Leeds United fixture. The ratings are, of course, subjective. One person's opinion. There are players whose average rating and position in the rankings need to be seen in fuller context than just numbers. Patrick Bamford, for example, has had no starts in the Championship and in a number of his substitute cameos he has had next to no time to make an impact during the final stages of difficult games. What can you really do in 123 minutes of Championship action? When the sample size is that small then the numbers can be skewed. In the final reckoning in May a high average rating for a player with a handful of appearances will not matter nearly as much as the contribution of a player who was between a 6 and a 7 all season long. Slow and steady wins the race, as they say.

There are players, like Piroe, whose contribution in terms of end product might have outweighed their overall performances in many games and that is what will be valued most highly if Leeds go up. And then there are players who have just been good, relentlessly good, all season. Here are the ratings, which at the very least paint a picture of who has best managed to catch the eye with their performances over the first eight months of a gruelling season.