MOT View: Comments from PL manager highlight missed January opportunity for Leeds
The January transfer window for Leeds United seemed to be consumed by talk about who the club would bring in to replace the outgoing Eddie Nketiah.
The youngster returned to parent club Arsenal, frustrated by a lack of significant game time.
He left a big vacancy in Yorkshire as a back-up and challenger to Marcelo Bielsa’s treasured number nine Patrick Bamford.
For a long time it appeared that Sheffield United captain Billy Sharp would be the man to replace Nketiah.
The Yorkshire Evening Post reported last month that the Whites were considering Sharp and Southampton’s Che Adams to fill Nketiah’s spot.
However, it obviously didn’t end up happening and the club ended up with Jean-Kevin Augustin on loan from RB Leipzig.
That’s not a bad singing by any means, but you do get the sense that the club may have missed the boat with Sharp.
Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder’s recent words on the striker highlight that point exactly.
“I was disappointed with a situation when people were talking about me allowing Billy to go out,” he said, as per the Yorkshire Post. “Their ‘facts’ weren’t right.
“I said if Billy knocked on my door and said he wanted to play elsewhere then I’d do what I could to facilitate that. He hadn’t. So that was the end of the story.”
The 34-year-old has barely featured for the Blades in the Premier League this season, but in their promotion-winning campaign last time out he bagged 24 goals in 42 games.
He’s 34 years of age now, so he wouldn’t be a long-term solution. But that’s not what Leeds needed, they wanted someone to fire their promotion bid, and Sharp has a track record of doing that.
His record in the division is one of the best around. He’s got 114 goals and 40 assists in 322 games in the second tier.
Whatever you say about Augustin – and he might turn out to be a fantastic signing – he hasn’t got the proven track record in England that Sharp does.
The fact that Wilder was clearly reluctant to let him go tells you all you need to know about what a boost it would have been for Leeds to have re-signed the veteran striker.
In other Leeds United news, Jamie Carragher has been speaking about why he wants the club back in the top flight.