Samu Saiz has left Leeds and gone back to Spain, signing for Getafe on loan after stating he was unhappy at Leeds.
The move came as a shock to Leeds fans but this wasn’t the first time that Saiz had been unhappy at Elland Road.
According to Phil Hay, he wasn’t happy when Paul Heckingbottom took over, and he told former teammates as much, but his camp said he was “excited” when Marcelo Bielsa took over.
Talking on the latest episode of the Inside Elland Road podcast (07:15) Hay said: “He’s told some of his ex-teammates at Huesca that he’s not happy at Leeds that he’d like to go. It turned out then that he wasn’t happy under Heckingbottom. He struggled to come to terms with the spitting ban. He got the attention and he got the punishment he deserved.
“Bielsa came in very quickly. When I spoke to the Saiz camp they said he was excited about this appointment. He did get his body fat down to where Biesla wanted and I think he played the best he’s played for Leeds in August.”
OPINION
When Saiz was good, he was brilliant. But you get the feeling that he thought he was bigger than Leeds at times. There were probably a fair few players who weren’t happy under Paul Heckingbottom – it turned out to be a fairly disastrous appointment – but as a professional you knuckle down and do what’s best for the team, not go to your former teammates and say you’re not happy. It does sound like Saiz approved of Bielsa’s appointment, but maybe that changed when he was dropped and spent a spell on the sidelines. If you do think you’re bigger than the club it must be quite a come-down to lose your place in the team. Like Hay said, when the deal was done, it was done very quickly, and you get the feeling that Leeds think he’s a player who would be distracting to have behind the scenes. We wish him all the best with his career in Spain – we can’t see another British club taking a shot on him in the foreseeable future.