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(Image Credit to Mark Leech / Getty Images)

Brian Deane scored the first-ever Premier League goal in 1992 and over 200 in his career. He played for nine clubs and had prolific spells at Doncaster, Sheffield United, Leeds, and Middlesbrough.

The BetSelect team sat down with Brian Deane to discuss the Leeds promotion, his prediction on how they’ll do in the Premier League next season, and when they’ll realistically be competing for Europe. We also discussed Leicester’s relegation, what needs to change, and Jamie Vardy’s future. Deane gave us his thoughts on how football and the role of the centre forward have changed over the years, and revealed his perfect starting eleven from all of his former teammates.

On Leeds United
Our conversation started with Leeds United. Brian played for Leeds between 1993 and 1997 and returned in 2004-2005.

How do you think Leeds will do in the Premier League next season? Could they do something similar to Nottingham Forest?

As you can imagine, everybody will be looking at what has happened to the last three clubs that went up. As a result, all three clubs that go up this season will be favourites to have a tough time. Leeds will have to adapt to games where they are playing against a higher level of players, so that will be tough. Are the new signings going to gel? It all takes time. Leeds is a very demanding place to play football - I’ve been in difficult situations there myself. But they picked themselves up after a tough end to last season, and they've stepped up. Everybody has played a role. So you can't argue that they deserve their opportunity, and I think they'll be looking forward to it.

You've had such a dominating season in the Championship. Every player wants to know how good they can be. So they'll be looking at a fixture list and thinking: That’s going to be a tough month, here’s where I can score a few goals, and so on. It’s exciting times. It's great to be a young fit footballer playing for Leeds United next season; it doesn't get better than that.

I'm sure Daniel Farke will be excited about the prospect, too. It's just great. It's great for the city. It's great for the city because, commercially and economically, it makes a massive impact having a successful football team. I love knowing that you've got Arsenal coming to Leeds, Manchester United, and Newcastle coming down. It will be amazing for the city of Leeds and the fans.

What should the target be? How long until they’re seriously competing at the top level? Maybe even Europe?

We have to go back to having a short-term, medium-term, and long-term plan. I would have thought the long-term plan is to produce your own players through the academy. The medium-term plan is to develop players, sell them for more money, and get into the top eight. The short-term plan is stability. All of this is key for sustainability in the premiership.

People forget what it would have taken out of the club to be out of the Premier League for so long. You're probably talking about a seven-year project. The first hurdle should be stabilising and ensuring you can stay in the Premier League. If you can do that over two or three years, then there's no reason you can't start looking at phase two and get to the point where Leeds is an established Premier League club.

But it's an exciting project. Leeds is a club that will attract some of the biggest sponsors in the country, perhaps globally. All of these things help. Leeds fans are excited. They've had to watch a lot of clubs get involved with big sponsorships, bringing in world-class players, and they've had to be satisfied with being in the Championship for a lot of the time, having the odd go in the premiership, but then not being able to sustain it. So, the first thing the fans will want is sustainability and a solid foundation to compete long-term.

What do you think about the Kalvin Phillips return rumours? A good idea or not?

It depends on how much he's going to cost. There'll be a lot of pressure on him if he comes back. The fact that he's underperformed while he's been away is something that people should be thinking about. I'm not saying he's a bad player, this is an England international we’re talking about, but he's going to be under the spotlight/

He's been at Ipswich and, unfortunately, has not dominated a first-team place there. So, if they can pick him up without breaking the bank, there's some good business to be done.

But you need to look at players in that position now. You look at somebody like Thomas Partey. For a long time, nobody talked about him. And then all of a sudden, Arsenal missed him in the first leg against PSG. These are the kinds of players Leeds needs. Somebody who will instill fear into the opposition because they can break things up.

On Leicester City

How do you think Leicester will do in the Championship next season? Will they be competitive? Any thoughts on the relegation?

Leicester has had so many changes. This is the third manager in a short period. Some players will believe they should be playing in the Premier League, although if you look at how they’ve performed this season, they've not been very good. Those individuals have a lot to prove. There'll be some bruised egos.

They have one of the best training facilities in the league, and it's a beautiful place to live. So you wonder if they've got the right balance regarding their squad. What's the recruitment like? It will be a rebuild now because some of those players were not good enough in the Premier League. They need to look at a different way of putting the squad together. Something needs to change because you can't fall away as badly as they have done. They're going into games, and you already know they'll get beaten. That doesn't happen much. Unfortunately, Leicester has had that many changes at the top that everybody seems unsettled there.

Leicester is a massive club in the Championship, so they must be challenging. They can't afford to slip away. There's been a big investment. They're going to have to refresh. They're going to have to create funds. And then from there, they're looking to go up again. But as we know, it's not that easy. That's why you've got the balance. You've got to get the balance right.

How does Leicester prevent the yo-yo between the Premiership and Championship?

Everything is already in place. While everything was successful, were they trying to stay ahead, or were they just settling? Looking at the top clubs, they don't just settle and say, "We've got a great squad now." They have to keep thinking about how to improve.

From what I saw of Leicester this season, there aren’t many leaders. I didn't see the recruitment they had five years ago. I didn't see anybody like a Youri Tielemans or any inspirational players being signed. That's why I am questioning recruitment. From what I've seen, it looks like lazy recruitment. I'm not close to what's going on there, but I think it's fair to say that. If you can't put a squad together, you must be able to get good players from somewhere. It just depends on how creative or how imaginative you want to be. So you go out there and get the players you want to have in your identity. And I don't know if I’ve seen that in Leicester. When I've seen them play, it’s individuals, not a team.

On Jamie Vardy

What do you think of Jamie Vardy’s comments on wanting to stay in the PL? Is he still good enough? Or do you think he should go abroad like you did to Benfica?

He's still got a good turn of pace. I retired at 38, and your problem is that the higher up you play, the harder it is for the body to recover from injuries. Your body is under such strain. Of course, we'd all like to think that in our late 30s, we could still compete in the Premier League, but the truth is, it's a young man's sport.

Nobody can take away what he's done. He's been an absolutely phenomenal player for Leicester. But who's going to give him an opportunity at the top level? If he wants to play, he will be an impact player. I can understand why he would want to do that, because if you feel you can still do that at the top level, then maybe you're better playing a one in five, and just being able to train and prepare without the pressure of playing every game. He would make a good squad player in one of the top teams with an understanding that you're not going to play much, but you may come on with 10, 15 minutes to go, and perhaps your experience will help us in certain situations. Jamie Vardy would be realistic enough to know he won’t be able to play 38 games at the top level. But he's been a phenomenal player. It'll be interesting to see if he gets any offers. Because he’s more experienced, he'll have much more to offer than many other players. He’s got to the age of 38 and he's still playing in the Premier League, there are not many people who can do that.

Going abroad would be an excellent experience for him. If you're not playing in the top league against top defenders, you can recreate some of your finest moments in a good environment and still enjoy it. That would be interesting. Maybe MLS.

There have been talks of him going to Wrexham. What do you think of that?

It would be perfect because that's a new project. He's meeting them on the way up. He's on the way down. They're going to need that experience in the Championship. It could be an excellent move for him.

On how football (and strikers) have changed

How do you think the role of a center-forward has changed since your playing days? What do you think of the shortage of top-quality strikers at the moment?

We've got a situation now where everything is about possession. So, what do we start doing? We start inverting wingers to ensure they can dominate the area in front of the opposition's goal. When you invert your wingers, they naturally come inside instead of going down the lines. So if you've got somebody right-footed on the left, he will never go down the line and cross it in with his left.

We reached a point where we never needed a centre forward to peel off the centre back onto his shoulder to create a space, which changed the dynamics of the game. I remember watching Barcelona and seeing Javier Mascareno playing at centre back. At that time, Barcelona tried getting as many ball players onto the pitch as possible. If you've got players that are very good at keeping the ball, it means a higger chance of maintaining possession exactly how you want to.

Look at Erling Haaland. When he was playing for Borussia Dortmund, he was running onto things. He was running off the centre back’s shoulder. Now he's on a team like Manchester City, which has a lot of ball possession, and there's no space for him because everybody drops deep. There’s no space for him to move. If you go back to when Erling Haaland first came into the Premier League, he was scoring goals, and they didn't know how to deal with it because he was pulling off centre backs and coming back in front of them. We'd lost the ability to defend against the big player, so they were still playing 1v1s against him, and he was making a mockery of them. And now what they're doing is they're filling the spaces. So he's finding out. If you look at him playing now, he has nowhere to run.

In terms of a big centre forward, teams have learned how to play against them. The only way we'll have use for the big centre forward again is when we start playing right-footed wingers on the right and left-footed wingers on the left to capitalise on somebody who will be good in the box. It's just getting players into the box, and the game starts developing that way again.

How do you think you’d do in today’s football? Would you be able to score goals in this new system?

If you ask most people who played in my era, I played in an era when there were some amazing centre forwards: Andy Cole, Les Ferdinand, Ian Wright, Alan Shearer, and Teddy Sheringham. We would all fancy it because it was a more physical game then. We had to deal with a lot more than just getting chances. I’d say that most players from my era would all be thriving.

If you look at Chelsea, when they had Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard scored 30 goals. Lampard scored 30 goals because he came from deep and worked with Drogba. We've lost the ability to mark people like me in today’s football. Because we were quite physical in that era, we were either physical, or we could handle being played against physically. It’s very different now.


On England

How do you think this England squad differs from when you were playing?

When I was playing football, it was more tribal. It was more about representing a club than being an individual. When I was in the England squad, the players wouldn't talk. Manchester United players wouldn’t speak to Liverpool players. You were 24/7 a Manchester United, Liverpool, or Arsenal player. Arsenal and Tottenham players didn't talk to each other.

That was part of the performance problem because players couldn't switch off. I think Gareth Southgate obviously recognised it because he's also from my era. That would have been one of the first things to change to improve performance so that everybody was pulling in the same direction. Making that public was important because it changed the atmosphere and the environment. But we're still not going to win much until we start having more players abroad bringing in different things.

On The Premier League

Since you scored that very first goal for the Premier League, it's gone on to become and be called the most competitive league in the world. But looking at Man City's dominance, do you think it's still the most competitive league in the world?

It is. You just have to look at the budgets. Every game is harder now. If you look at France, they've got the most exciting team in the world this season, but they're in a league of one. In Spain, it's a league of two. In Germany, league of two, maybe three. Italy, again, the same thing.

Whereas in England you play Newcastle, you can play Brighton, you can play Wolves. Alll of these clubs can beat you on their day. So it's definitely the most competitive league. And perhaps because they've got the biggest budgets, they can still attract the biggest and best players.

His perfect 11 (from past teammates)

What would be the perfect starting 11 from all the players you have played with?

Nigel Martin, Gary Kelly, Paulo Madeira, Gary Pallister, Christian Ziegler, Lucas Radebe, Gary McAllister, Juninho Paulista, Alen Bokšić, Nuno Gomes, Tony Yeboah