£18m to vanish at Leeds United Diego Llorente development emerges at Roma
Diego Llorente has had quite a miserable time since joining Leeds United from Real Sociedad back in September 2020.
The 29-year-old Spain international has been plagued with injury issues, suffered terrible bouts of form and since joining Roma in January in a bid to revive his career, he’s struggled to turn things around.
Since joining Roma on deadline day in the winter transfer window, Llorente has played just three times in all competitions.
In Serie A, he’s yet to start a game, playing just twice as a substitute while his only start, which came in a Europa League win over Real Sociedad, saw him taken off at half-time.
Jose Mourinho seems to have either signed Llorente just to add some squad depth or the Roma manager simply isn’t impressed by the Spain centre-back.
It seems to be the latter, unfortunately for Llorente.
Gazzetta dello Sport reported on 22 March that Mourinho is unconvinced by the on-loan defender while he was named under the Italian newspaper’s “transfer mistakes” list.
It raised eyebrows in January when Roma signed Llorente given the fact he was in such poor form at Elland Road.
The Daily Mail reported on 31 January that Leeds had even managed to get Roma to agree an £18million option-to-buy clause in the loan contract.
However, that pre-agreed transfer looks to have derailed already due to Llorente’s lack of game-time and failure to impress Mourinho behind the scenes in Italy.
Llorente bizarrely signed a new contract at Elland Road before he was sent out on loan.
It means that if he returns to West Yorkshire this summer, he’ll have another three years left on his deal.
There’s no way Leeds will get anywhere near the £18million they agreed with Roma for him and based on how bad things are going right now, it may be another loan deal or the club will just have to stick with the Spaniard for a while longer.
In other Leeds United news, one pundit believes one Whites star has no chance of displacing his competition in the team.
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