Leeds United can finally get rid of ‘stinking’ Laurens De Bock in June
Laurens De Bock is unbelievably, technically, still a Leeds United player.
De Bock, now 29, joined the Whites from Club Brugge in January 2018 when Thomas Christiansen was in charge but it was clearly very early on that the ex-Belgium Under-21 international was absolutely hopeless and out of his depth in England.
It didn’t take long for Marcelo Bielsa to figure that out and although De Bock’s been on the books at Elland Road for over four years now, he has made only seven appearances for the Yorkshire club with the last one coming in March 2018.
De Bock never tasted victory at Leeds and has since been sent out on loan by Bielsa and Victor Orta to Oostende, Sunderland, ADO Den Haag and Zulte Wagerem.
He’s currently still on loan at Zulte Wagerem and has had some mild success there this season in the fact that he’s been their captain and played 28 times in all competitions.
But the best thing about De Bock right now – for Leeds, at least – is that his contract is now just over three months away from expiring at the end of June.
De Bock has been an absolute drain on resources at Elland Road in his entire association with the Yorkshire club and for the sake of absolutely everybody, it’s best that he’s cut adrift.
In all honesty, it’s amazing that the left-back once dubbed “stinking” by Noel Whelan [BBC Radio Leeds, February 2018, via HITC] has remained on the books as long as he has and hasn’t had his contract terminated.
But, here we are, just a few months away from the last of Victor Orta’s absolutely rotten transfers being moved on.
Orta went crazy with signing garbage in his first couple of transfer windows at Elland Road and De Bock is the final remnant of that.
Leeds’ first transfer window with Orta as director of football saw them waste millions on Hadi Sacko, Felix Wiedweld, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Vurnon Anita, Caleb Ekuban, Ousaum Bouy, Andy Lonergan and Pawel Cibicki. In January, he then added to the wall of shame by signing Yosuke Ideguchi and De Bock.
There were, of course, some shining stars in Orta’s first season at Leeds with Mateusz Klich, Ezgjan Alioski, Tyler Roberts and Adam Forshaw all going on to be used regularly by Marcelo Bielsa and playing in the Premier League.
However, the bad and the ugly definitely outweighed the good.
Out of the major flops, De Bock is the final one to go.
It’s likely to be a low-key exit for the Belgian left-back, who’s very likely to secure a free transfer away to another club in Belgium (potentially Zulte Wagerem, in our opinion). But it’s quite a poignant one for a team that’s now back in the big time in the Premier League.
In other Leeds United news, Phil Hay’s been raving about an English midfielder who he’s heard linked with the Whites.