Pablo Hernandez has delivered big-time for Leeds this season in what has been his best at Elland Road since he arrived from Al Arabi on a free transfer in January 2017.
The 33-year-old has been rolling back the years and he hit the headlines in the 4-0 win against West Brom when he scored a sublime goal after just 16 seconds of the kick-off.
It wasn’t supposed to work out like this, though. Writing in the Yorkshire Evening Post, Phil Hay claims that Hernandez was signed as a “short-term gamble” by then manager Garry Monk.
“When Hernandez first signed for Leeds, in the early months of Garry Monk’s reign as manager, the transfer was an educated and convenient punt: comparatively cheap and a short-term gamble on a forgotten player with proven pedigree,” Hay said.
“United loaned him from Al-Arabi initially and then signed him on a permanent deal which ran to the end of last season.”
Hay goes on to say that his time at Leeds was under threat for a brief period last year when club and player haggled over a contract extension.
That got done in the end and he is now under contract until 2020, which opens up the prospect of Hernandez playing back in the Premier League with Leeds.
Hay claims that if Bielsa had been at the club at the time the extension would never have been in question and claims the manager rates Hernandez so highly he admitted, “I think he can make me a better head coach”.
On talkSPORT it was claimed that Bielsa had said he was one of the best players in his position he had ever worked with in his career.
OPINION
The younger players at Leeds can learn so much from Hernandez. At 33-years-old, he’s played at the highest level with Valencia and then in the Premier League with Swansea. But he’s arguably playing the best football of his entire career at the moment – certainly his best in the white shirt of Leeds. If Leeds get back in the Premier League next season, Hernandez will have had a big part to play and will deserve to go down as a legend at Elland Road. You can’t get much higher an accolade than a manager like Marcelo Bielsa saying he could be the best player in his position he’s managed. And that he could actually improve him as a coach. And Hernandez is as classy off the pitch as he is on it. You’d be hard pressed to find a nicer guy in the game. And, to think he was signed as a short-term gamble and then almost allowed to leave. They do say that football is a funny old game.