OPINION
While last season might have appeared as a write off for Leeds United – in terms of the Championship table at least – there were a fair few positives for the Elland Road faithful to take away.
Not least of those shining lights was the emergence of some of the best young talent that the club has produced in recent years, with a number of starlets making the step up from youth football to the senior side and impacting heavily on the first team.
One such name who was a real revelation for the club was left back Tom Pearce, who made his debut in March of last year and went on to start in all four of the Whites’ final four games of the season, hinting that he would play a bigger part in the 2018/19 season.
However things have not worked out that way at all, with Marcelo Bielsa choosing to leave the 20-year-old firmly on the fringes of the first team and handing the youngster just two starts in the League Cup and keeping him as an unused substitute in the Championship.
Defensive issues have risen their head this season and as such Pearce might well have been hopeful that he would be given a chance to shine, but even when that opportunity to hand him a shot in the senior side came along, in the shape of Pontus Jansson’s suspension, Bielsa looked elsewhere.
It was Ezgjan Alioski, the natural winger, who was shoehorned into a role at the back against Ipswich Town on Wednesday, with Gaetano Berardi moved central and Stuart Dallas, who has another to act as a makeshift defender, benched.
? | #LUFC Starting XI presented by @Ladbrokes:-
Peacock-Farrell, Ayling, Alioski, Cooper, Berardi, Phillips, Klich, Harrison, Hernandez, Saiz, Roofe pic.twitter.com/v3JYYcP4bg
— Leeds United (@LUFC) October 24, 2018
Pearce meanwhile remains out of the picture under Bielsa, and having broken through so impressively in early 2018, the end of the year is not looking good for the youngster.
He is at risk of sinking at Elland Road after promising so much, and the fact he is now behind Alioski as an option casts serious doubts over the manager’s plans for the once-highly rated talent.
A loan move to pick up some game time in January might have to be on the cards, for at the moment he is slipping down the pecking order and seeing his development harmed as a result.