Leeds United suffered relegation down to the Championship last week as they finished 19th in the Premier League table with a 4-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on the final day.
The Whites are now braced for a summer of change, as they remain without a manager following Sam Allardyce's exit, and that could include plenty of movement in the playing squad.
One player who could be on his way out of Elland Road is central midfielder Marc Roca, who arrived at the club from German giants Bayern Munich last summer.
The Athletic's Phil Hay has reported that an exit is 'likely' for the 26-year-old and that he could make a return to Spain, where LaLiga outfit Real Betis have been credited with an interest in his services.
Who could replace Marc Roca at Leeds?
U21 midfielder Lewis Bate, who has been out on loan at Oxford United in League One, could make the step up to replace the Spaniard next season.
The 20-year-old, who has played four first-team matches for the club, offers similar attributes to Roca in the middle of the park as he has the ability to create chances for his teammates from a central midfield position and has the defensive awareness to make interventions at the back on a regular basis.
In League One, the youngster averaged a Sofascore rating of 6.84 across 28 appearances and made 1.1 key passes and two tackles and interceptions per game for his side.
Roca, meanwhile, averaged a Sofascore rating of 6.81 in the Premier League across 32 matches and made 2.7 tackles and interceptions and one key pass per outing for Leeds.
This suggests that the pair, who both averaged between 79 and 80% pass accuracy in their respective divisions, are both combative midfielders who can also put their foot on the ball and use their quality to find teammates in attacking positions in order to create goalscoring opportunities.
Recruitment analyst and U18 specialist Connor Rowden claimed that Bate's ability to "control" games is "unparalleled" amongst his peers and this suggests that the academy gem could excel in the Championship in games that Leeds are expected to dominate in as teams potentially sit back in low blocks in an attempt to counter-attack against a side that was just in the top-flight.
He could use his ball-playing quality to wear down teams by rotating possession and shifting the opposition from side to side before utilising his creativity to play a killer ball to find a teammate in the final third.
The former Chelsea starlet's creative statistics in the third tier this season indicate that he has been able to translate his skills from youth level over to senior football and Leeds must now hand him an opportunity to showcase his talent in the second tier in 2023/24 after a full year of development under his belt.
Bate, based on his solid form for Oxford this term, could make the step up and save the club millions by coming in as a direct replacement for Roca, assuming the Spaniard does depart the Yorkshire side this summer.
