Leeds United transfer window update: Elland Road stance on January Bournemouth return for Jaidon Anthony – Phil Hay
Leeds United aren’t planning to send Jaidon Anthony back to Bournemouth this month despite the on-loan winger struggling for opportunities, says Phil Hay.
Asked about the wide man’s immediate future on The Square Ball on 19 January The Athletic’s Whites correspondent reported that the club do not intend to end his season-long move early.
Anthony arrived at Elland Road as part of the controversial deal which took Luis Sinisterra in the opposite direction late on transfer deadline day after the Colombian and his agent forced the move, much to the evident displeasure of Angus Kinnear [Square Ball, 7 September].
Hay said (38m 50s): “The plan was to keep him, yes, and is still being involved… the pecking order and the selection policy has been quite rigid. There hasn’t been a massive amount of rotation…
“He’s the sort of player that if he played a lot of games would get on a roll and would be really good. I think it’s quite hard for him to make an impact in the little moments he’s getting.
“But yeah, I can think of plenty of Leeds teams where he’d have got a game, for sure.”
Options
With Crysencio Summerville and Dan James in such outstanding form this season they are virtually impossible to drop for any reason other than to rest them.
Daniel Farke’s reticence to rotate in order to avoid burn out has been one of the few significant complaints about the German’s management at Leeds United so far this term, so both Anthony and Willy Gnonto have faded into the background behind the star pair of starting wingers.
Two Championship starts is a lot less than the 24-year-old Cherries man would have hoped for so far, with plenty of his 19 league appearances in the final minutes of games.
But with transfer activity proving to be very slow in the ground this month it would be a considerable risk to let players leave without replacements lined up.
Farke chose to take that risk when he ended Djed Spence’s loan from Tottenham early in the New Year, and then saw it compounded by the exit of Luke Ayling.
So with full-back already a priority during a tricky window there seems little reason to leave gaps further forward without there being arrivals ready to fill them.
In other Leeds United news, an “astronomical” verdict has been issued as multiple Premier League clubs want deal for Elland Road man.
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