Carlton Palmer ⭑ From A-Z since '92

This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme, and to read all the players so far, browse the archive here.

From the stands, it was hard to understand why Howard Wilkinson had paid so much money for Carlton Palmer. That wasn't necessarily about Palmer's qualities as a player, although there were plenty of questions about that. It just wasn't clear what problem he was meant to be solving. What was he for?

Carlton Palmer was not, emphatically, a replacement for David Batty, and that point kept getting made to disgruntled fans who replied, quite reasonably, that they could tell. Batty had been sold to Blackburn Rovers a year earlier, in 1993, for £2.75m, and was now helping the steel-rich Lancashire upstarts compete for the Premier League title. Meanwhile Leeds were paying £2.7m to buy Palmer from Wednesday so the obvious complaint was, instead of this swapping players and banking £500,000 — half of which had been spent on John Pemberton — why didn't we just keep Batty?

The answer about Batty was firstly about cashflow. Leeds United acted rich, and had built the biggest cantilever stand in the world to demonstrate their fitness for the lush new Premier League. But the club was poor, dependent on chairman Leslie Silver's personal finances. In the northern factory pecking order, Jack Walker's steel-manufacturing was much more lucrative than Silver's paint business, so the Leeds impresario was risking much more — mortgaging his house for loans to afford players — and had to recoup where and when he could. He could recoup the club record fee for Brian Deane because, when Kenny Dalglish put his bid in for Batty, it was a relief to both the player and his manager. Batty and Wilkinson had never got along, and while the fans thought Batty — McAllister — Speed — Strachan was a midfield that couldn't be bettered, Wilko thought it might be better with someone in Batty's place who did what he was told.

That included being told to play in defence. Starting in the title season, Wilkinson liked Batty to drop in behind the centre-backs as a sweeper, giving Tony Dorigo and Mel Sterland, then Gary Kelly, freedom to bomb forward, like the 5-3-2 of Wilko's mid-1980s Sheffield Wednesday. Batty had never been into it, although he was happy enough winning the league that way. When Palmer was signed, it was made abundantly clear, and not just to soothe fans who thought he'd be replacing Batty in midfield, that Palmer would be playing at the back.

Wilkinson seemed to think his flexible formations would be easier to achieve, and bring better results, with Palmer. He knew enough about him, as they were neighbours in Sheffield. Gordon Strachan had also been keen on bringing him to Elland Road, which might have been based on a character reference from Strachan's pal Ron Atkinson, who had brought the best out of Palmer as a youngster at West Bromwich Albion, then turned him into an England player at Wednesday. Big Ron thought he was buying Palmer again, for Aston Villa, until Wilkinson got involved and made him the second most expensive player in Leeds United's history.