Leeds United signed Kemar Roofe off the back of a single campaign with Oxford United. They needed no more proof that he was ready to step up to the Championship after 2015/16.

Like many players who start their career at a big club and struggle to break through, Roofe spent several seasons out on loan at various clubs. The youngster found himself playing football in Iceland for a season at Vikingur F.C. After making only three appearances for the club, he returned to the UK for disappointing spells at Northampton Town, Cheltenham Town and Colchester United. The youngster played a total of 19 times in three seasons across the three clubs.

Roofe joins Oxford United

Roofe joined Oxford United in February 2015 on a month-long contract, and despite a slow start, his stay was extended until the end of the season. He scored four goals in his last three matches to finish the season with six goals in 16 games for the club.

This earned him a three-year-deal at the club, and saw the striker leave West Bromwich Albion, a club he had been with since he turned professional, but was unable to ever force an appearance for.

What followed was a season that Oxford fans will never forget. Manager Michael Appleton, who had worked with Roofe as a coach in West Brom‘s youth team, was able to unlock the player that many thought he could be.

Roofe became the star man for Oxford this season, scoring 26 goals in 48 games across all competitions. Some of the goals the striker scored that season will go down in Oxford United history, including a brace against then Premier League club Swansea City in a 3-2 FA Cup victory and another two against arch rivals Swindon Town.

His goalscoring feat is made more impressive by the fact that he wasn’t actually playing as Oxford’s striker. He played in a variety of positions for United, including on either wing. Mainly though, we saw Roofe in an attacking midfield role, with the intent of working closely with Danny Hylton, who was a much more traditional number nine. The idea being that Roofe could be a lot more involved with the link-up play, and make use of his incredible ability to score from distance.

Roofe spearheaded an Oxford side that finished the season with promotion to League One, and several individual awards. These included being named the League Two Player of the Year and in the League Two and EFL Team of the Season.

Just before leaving the club in the summer, Roofe was named the Player’s Player of the Year, as well as winning the Golden Boot and Goal of the Season at the Oxford United end-of-season awards. It’s safe to say it was a fairly successful season for the Jamaican.

Leeds United in the summer of 2016

It’s important to add some context as to where Leeds United were in the summer of 2016. It had been over 10 years since Leeds were a Premier League side, and were stagnating as a mid-table Championship team.

In the 2015/16 season, Leeds had a poor start to the season. They sacked manager Uwe Rösler after just 10 matches in charge of the club. Losing a manager before they really had time to get their feet under the table was becoming a common occurrence at the club.

Leeds finished 13th under Steve Evans, after being unable to put any sort of consistent run together. The one bright spark came in the form of new signing Chris Wood, who scored 13 goals and showed signs of being a top player.

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Roofe signing for Leeds United

The forward completed the move to Leeds on 7th July 2016. In his first season, he found himself playing in similar positions as he did for Oxford. There was a clear hope that Roofe would be able to recreate the connection he had with Hylton, in the Leeds side, with Wood. Roofe and Wood knew each other from their time at West Brom together, a partnership Leeds were hoping would ignite.

The first season in a new division is tough for anybody to deal with, let alone moving up two divisions. The physical demands are a lot more intense, and the time you have on the ball is significantly less. Not many players are rated highly enough to sign for a team two divisions above where they last played, with the idea of them instantly becoming a part of the first team. Often, in these cases, the player is loaned back out to a weaker side in their division to gain a feel for the league and get some valuable minutes. For Roofe, however, Leeds saw him as a player able to make that jump straight away given what he’d delivered for Oxford further down the pyramid.

Roofe’s first season didn’t bring as many goals as he would have liked, but his second and third certainly did. The Jamaican finished with 14 and 16 goals in his next two seasons respectively, and proved to himself and the club that making the decision to bring a player up from League Two straight to the Championship was not a mistake.

Roofe has gone on to play for top teams like Anderlecht and Rangers. The 31-year-old has enjoyed some big success in Scotland, including scoring the longest goal in the history of the Europa League.

His career path post-Oxford, and impact at Leeds and elsewhere, shows that he just might’ve been too good for League Two in that single season that really shaped his career.