‘Huge opportunity’ – Exclusive: Pundit tips £1.5m ace to make Leeds debut in clash v Crawley
We’re delighted to welcome former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Leeds United
Paul Robinson has said that Sunday’s FA Cup game offers a “huge opportunity” for Marcelo Bielsa to play a number of Under-23 stars such as Sam Greenwood.
Robinson is predicting a heavily changed line-up for the game and said that the priority for Leeds has to be the Premier League.
Robinson added that Greenwood could push on from his debut against Crawley to play a part in the second half of the season for the first team.
Striker Greenwood signed for Leeds from Arsenal for a fee of £1.5m that could rise to £3m with add-ons.
Talking exclusively to MOT Leeds News Robinson said, “I think it would be good for Sam Greenwood to get a run-out against Crawley.
“And with the number of games coming up in the Premier League, it would be good for him to get his first-team debut out of the way and then he’ll feel a part of it.
“It’s a huge opportunity for the manager to give him and some other Under-23s their break and to give his first-team players a rest.
“I think he’ll make a huge amount of changes for Sunday’s game because the FA Cup is not the priority for Leeds.
“You can see the cup as something that’s important to the development of the Leeds youngsters but all of the focus has to be on the Premier League.”
Marcelo Bielsa’s pre-match press conference takes place at Thorp Arch later on today and we should get a better handle on what sort of team he’s going to put out on Sunday.
We can see first-team players such as Kalvin Phillips playing (he’s suspended for the Premier League game against Brighton) and Diego Llorente might make his return from injury.
We’d be very surprised if a number of Under-23s players don’t make their first-team bows in the game and Greenwood has to be near the top of the list with another summer signing, Joe Gelhardt.
The game on Sunday kicks off at 1.30pm and is being shown live on the BBC.
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