{"id":357790,"date":"2025-08-19T21:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/357790\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T21:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:53:12","slug":"troy-deeney-singles-out-leeds-united-player-who-was-the-catalyst-in-everton-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/357790\/","title":{"rendered":"Troy Deeney singles out Leeds United player who was the ‘catalyst’ in Everton win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Premier League striker Troy Deeney has singled out a Leeds United player for praise following their opening round win over Everton at Elland Road. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Having dominated the first half, as Joel Piroe<\/a> missed the best chance of the opening 45 minutes, Leeds looked like they would be forced to settle for a draw in their first game back in the Premier League<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, a late penalty from Lukas Nmecha<\/a> handed Daniel Farke and his Leeds side a well-earned win in which several players produced excellent performances. <\/p>\n

Ethan Ampadu<\/a> was singled out as the best player on the pitch by Jamie Carragher<\/a> after the game, after dominating in midfield for the Whites. Now, Troy Deeney has echoed this, naming Ampadu as the \u201ccatalyst\u201d for Leeds\u2019 win.<\/p>\n

\"EthanPhoto by James Gill \u2013 Danehouse\/Getty ImagesTroy Deeney praises Ethan Ampadu for Leeds United display<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC<\/a>, Deeney was asked to produce his team of the week from the opening round of the 2025\/26 Premier League season. <\/p>\n

Deeney named Ampadu as the holding midfielder in his side, alongside Nottingham Forest\u2019s Elliot Anderson and Manchester City\u2019s Tijjani Reijnders and was full of praise for his performance against the Toffees. <\/p>\n

Deeney said: \u201cIn holding midfield, Ampadu was excellent. He had a really nasty tackle, and it looked like he could have done damage to his ankle, but he was excellent. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe showed the armband, headed everything, tackled everything, and was really aggressive in his passing forwards \u2013 he was the catalyst for Leeds to go on to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LeedsPhoto by Michael Regan\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

MORE LEEDS UNITED STORIES<\/p>\n

Leeds captain praises Daniel Farke after opening round win<\/p>\n

Leeds were made to sweat over Ampadu\u2019s fitness after a heavy challenge left him in pain midway through the second half before he returned to the field, having overcome the effects of the tackle. <\/p>\n

Farke withdrew his captain shortly after as Leeds pushed for a goal, and his substitutions paid dividends, with Nmecha coming off the bench to score the winner. <\/p>\n

Speaking to NBC after the game, Ampadu praised Farke for his constant pursuit of high standards at Leeds after he inspired their opening round win. Asked how Farke will approach the season, Ampadu said: \u201cHe\u2019s going to stick to his beliefs. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, you\u2019re always going to have to have little tweaks with who you play against and what the opposition does and how they try and play. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut he\u2019s going to be very hard on us; he\u2019s going to keep us to our very high standards. There are no easy days, there are no easy minutes. He\u2019s going to push us all the way, and it\u2019s something that we\u2019re all in together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Premier League striker Troy Deeney has singled out a Leeds United player for praise following their opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,12411,4884,1860,11057,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-357790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-ethan-ampadu","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-leeds","13":"tag-troy-deeney","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115057656265085336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}