Former Leeds United striker Jermaine Beckford has admitted he’s ‘genuinely hurt’ by the club’s poor end to the season.
The Whites spent the entire 2023/24 Championship campaign battling against Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton for automatic promotion back to the Premier League.
Leeds even briefly topped the table in March but a run of just one win in their last six regular season matches consigned them to the playoff gauntlet.
Despite thrashing Norwich 4-0 on aggregate in the semi-finals, Leeds fell 1-0 to Southampton in Sunday’s playoff final at Wembley, meaning they must now prepare for another season in the second tier.
Beckford — who scored 85 goals in 152 appearances for Leeds between 2005 and 2010 — hasn’t been able to hide his disappointment at how things have unravelled for his former club.
“How am I? As a Leeds fan, I’m hurt guys, genuinely I’m hurt,” Beckford told talkSPORT on Monday morning. “It was a disappointing conclusion to the season, let alone the play-offs.
“Disappointing, in the final games of the season was disappointing.”
Beckford backs Daniel Farke despite playoff defeat
Leeds fans will be hurting for some time yet following their costly defeat to Southampton.
However, Beckford believes there are still plenty of positives to take from the campaign given their struggles in the Premier League in 2022/23. The former striker has backed manager Daniel Farke to keep the club moving forward next season.
“I would definitely say it was a huge – it was a successful season and I’m going to put some context to that,” Beckford continued.
“[We kept] 19 clean sheets. We managed to galvanise a very fractured squad. Bring the fan base back onside after a disappointing campaign in the Premier League – which was difficult to watch in itself.
“Daniel Farke has got the team playing a very exciting brand of football.”