Leeds United won’t believe £20m Burnley transfer development | OneFootball

Burnley have slapped a £20 million price tag on Jaidon Anthony, two years on from an uneventful loan spell at Leeds United

The 2025/26 campaign harboured few positives for Burnley in the Premier League, but despite their relegation, a few players proved that they are capable of continuing their time in the top flight.

This time last summer, Jaidon Anthony was highly recognised as a top Championship wideman who perhaps wasn't ready for that step-up to Premier League football.

At Bournemouth, he was nearly ever-present in their 2021/22 promotion campaign, scoring eight and assisting six in 45 outings en route to their second-placed finish. In the Premier League the following year, he started just 11 times.

There were fears that the same could have happened to him at Burnley, after he scored eight and assisted seven to help the Clarets secure promotion during the 2024/25 campaign. Due to that promotion, Scott Parker's side were locked into a £10 million obligation to buy him from the Cherries.

After being solid, but not world-beating, once again in the second tier, no one expected the 26-year-old to be as good in the Premier League. Anthony scored eight times, assisted a couple, and was solid defensively from the left-wing position, too.

but Burnley have slapped a £20 million price tag on him, too. Something which will completely baffle Leeds United fans.

Jaidon Anthony was ineffective at Leeds United before his Burnley move

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In between that Premier League campaign at Bournemouth and his loan to Burnley, Anthony was loaned out to Leeds in the summer of 2023, following the Whites' relegation the year before, as part of the deal which took Luis Sinisterra to the Vitality Stadium.

Like with the Clarets, the wideman arrived to help engineer an immediate promotion back to the top flight, but his impact at Elland Road was minimal, to say the least.

It was difficult for Anthony to truly establish himself in the Leeds fold that season, due to the sheer amount of quality that the Whites had in attacking areas, especially off the left-hand side. That year saw Crysencio Summerville win the division's Player of the Season with 28 goal involvements.

The Dutchman was undroppable, and as a consequence, Anthony was limited to cameo appearances off the bench and only started twice in league action, in a 1-0 win over QPR in October and a 1-0 loss against Stoke City later that month.

His only league goal came before then against Watford, and he ultimately wasn't able to showcase much throughout the limited time he had on the pitch to warrant more minutes.

Jaidon Anthony didn't hold the keys to a Leeds promotion — he's turned his career around since

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Leeds ended up failing in the play-offs in the 2023/24 campaign, becoming the first team in Championship history to accumulate 90 points and not earn promotion at the end of the year.

Anthony played just over 500 minutes throughout the league campaign and in the play-offs, but there weren't many Whites fans attributing their shortcomings that year to the fact that the winger didn't get much of a chance in the starting lineup.

Summerville is often criticised amongst some sections of the Leeds fanbase for not turning up when it mattered towards the end of that season, as he scored in just one of their final six league games as automatic promotion slipped away.

But the exciting Dutchman still had that x-factor that a then-24-year-old Anthony did not, and if Summerville was dropped for the Bournemouth loanee, there'd have been some questioning Daniel Farke's decision-making.

What is also true, though, is that Anthony has since kicked on and shown that he can still play a key role in a promotion-winning Championship side, and even hold his own in the Premier League, even if it is for one of the division's worst sides in Burnley.

There won't be many holding it against the 26-year-old for feeling he can continue his career in the Premier League, and, likewise, there wouldn't be many critics holding it against top-flight sides for wanting to add him this summer.