Leeds United let ‘fantastic’ midfielder go for free and now he’s captaining new club to promotion

Leeds United let ‘fantastic’ midfielder go for free and now he’s captaining new club to promotion

While Leeds United hands have been burned too often for anyone to get carried away, promotion back to the Premier League is edging closer and closer by the week.

To think, had Pascal Struijk not bulleted home two headers off the bench against Sunderland, had Leeds not scored three goals in the final 20 minutes at Sheffield United, Daniel Farke’s side might once again have been at serious risk of coming the third in a three-horse race.

Twice Leeds United snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Six points, six invaluable points, which could very easily have been none.

Legendary Elland Road skipper Dominic Matteo feels Leeds’ ability to bounce back is the major difference between Farke’s second season and his first; A real ‘Hallmark of Champions’ sort of feeling about a side gathering momentum and growing in confidence game by game.

And, as Leeds look to exit the Championship, Lewis Bate and Stockport County are hoping that it is they who stride through the door at the opposite end.

Lewis Bate captaining Stockport to promotion after Leeds United exit

While Wrexham hog headlines and spark media frenzy across the pond, Stockport County’s own journey up the footballing pyramid continues to go somewhat under the radar.

Yet, it was Stockport who actually beat Wrexham to the National League title in 2023. Dave Challinor’s side then secured an immediate route out of League Two – alongside their more-vaunted Welsh-based rivals – with both teams now looking to make it three promotions in a row come May.

Stockport and Wrexham – forever tied to each other like football’s fish ‘n’ chips, like League One’s Lampard and Gerrard – remain only four points and one place apart in the League One table.

Now, this might not have been the career path Lewis Bate anticipated when he broke the hearts of Chelsea fans by swapping West London for West Yorkshire back in 2021. But a player who was once so highly-regarded in the capital is living proof that, just because your career has had troughs as well as the odd peak, that does not mean you are destined to be forever known as a washed-up wonderkid and a prime example of wasted potential.

Bate played alongside the likes of Levi Colwill, Tino Livramento and even Jamal Musiala in Chelsea’s youth teams. Flash forward to 2025, and Colwill is a regular at Chelsea, Livramento plays for Newcastle, and Musiala is now the creative kingpin both of Bayern Munich and the German national team.

 

Lewis Bate, meanwhile, is best enjoyed in 30-second highlight packages late at night on ITV against the likes of Burton Albion and Bristol Rovers. But maybe not for long.

 

Bate’s Premier League dreams alive thanks to Stockport County revival

Still only 22 years of age, and now the captain of upwardly-mobile, ambitious Stockport County, Bate’s career is on the up again. From the Premier League to League Two in the blinking of an eye, his potential rise from the fourth tier to the second has been just as speedy.

 

Dave Challinor, the promotion-specialist in the Stockport dugout, admitted when bringing Bate to Edgley Park that a player reportedly snapped up on a free transfer had designs of returning to the pinnacle of the English game one day in the near future.

 

A footballer of such ambition, then, feels like a very fitting skipper for a Stockport side embodying everything Wrexham are relentlessly praised for albeit without the profile or the Hollywood backing.

 

“When we knew he was being released by Leeds, we immediately renewed our interest,” Challinor said following the midfielder’s arrival last summer, Lewis Bate immediately handed the captain’s armband.

 

“We’ve had to be really patient as there was interest in Lewis from higher up, but thankfully our patience has been rewarded.

 

“For some time now, we’ve felt that our biggest evolution as a team would come from a ball playing midfielder that will not only receive the ball in tight areas but manipulate space and play forward, as well as driving forward when the opportunity presents.

 

“Lewis is fantastic at all of these things and will be of huge importance to our development. Personally, for him, playing in the Premier League and Championship is where he wants to get back to and we really feel he has every opportunity for that to be the case.”

 

The Premier League, for now, remains a distant dream for Bate, not to mention Stockport.

 

But the Championship – with County fourth and only seven points off stuttering Wycombe Wanderers in the automatic promotion positions – feels like is a far more realistic aim.