New Leeds player suffers injury blow while on international duty
Spain have confirmed that new Leeds United defender Diego Llorente has suffered an injury setback while on international duty.
In a statement on the Spanish football team’s website, it has been confirmed that Llorente, 27, suffered a muscle injury in training and will not travel with the rest of the squad to Ukraine to play in the Nations League on Tuesday.
The Spanish football federation has informed Leeds of what has happened to Llorente, who appeared to be holding his groin in an image on the website (as seen below).
Llorente joined Leeds in an £18million deal from Real Sociedad last month.
The Spanish centre-back is yet to play for the Whites but was on the bench last weekend as Marcelo Bielsa’s side drew 1-1 against Manchester City at Elland Road.
Bielsa has a few centre-back options to choose from after signing Llorente and Robin Koch in the transfer window with Liam Cooper and Pascal Struijk the only options before their arrival.
It remains to be seen how long Llorente will be sidelined for but hopefully Spain’s decision to send him back to Leeds is more of a precaution than anything else.
Llorente has never really struggled too much with injuries in his career. However, stats by transfermarkt do show that he’s had muscle injuries every now and then over the past couple of years. Fortunately, none of them have been too serious.
But it’s still a blow for Leeds and a blow for Llorente, he’s now likely to take even longer to settle down at Elland Road and earn a much-anticipated debut.
In other Leeds United news, there’s been an interesting update on Rodrigo De Paul.