OPINION
When Matthew Pennington’s loan at Leeds United came to an end last season, there may well have been the expectation that Everton would looking to move him on after coming through the youth ranks.
A fringe figure at Goodison Park, with nine appearances for the first team, the 23-year-old centre back certainly did not look like having any sort of long-term future at the club when he returned from Elland Road.
However, the Premier League outfit confirmed back in May that they had made the shock move to hand him a new contract, and rather than dishing out something short-term, they committed him to a three-year deal.
So did this mean he was set for a more regular role in the first team?
Well, with the arrival of Yerry Mina and Kurt Zouma over the summer to add to Michael Keane, Mason Holgate and Phil Jagielka as the options ahead of the homegrown talent, he is at the bottom of a very long list, and game time seems highly unlikely.
Now, with the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Phil Hay reporting on the Inside Elland Road podcast (2:30) claiming that Pennington has been told he can leave the club on loan, the decision to hand him that long-term contract looks a total blunder and a waste of money.
Perhaps it was a ploy to get clubs – presumably with Leeds in mind – to pay more for his capture, or maybe they thought they would need him to cover for the first team.
In reality, neither has worked out, and now they are looking at a temporary deal with just days to go of the summer window.
Now he is just eating up a percentage of the club’s wage bill without having to do any serious work, but you can be sure he would rather be playing, leaving the decision to pen a deal looking like an error on his behalf too.