OPINION
Conor Shaugnessy has not been having the best of times up in Scotland lately, despite it originally looking as though the Leeds United defender had become a first team regular when he joined Hearts on loan in January.
The 22-year-old helped keep a clean sheet in a 1-0 win against Livingstone on his debut for the Edinburgh side, before going on to start four out of five Scottish Premiership fixtures.
However since being substituted off in the 2-1 defeat at Motherwell on February 17, Shaughnessy has been an unused substitute twice and was not even named in the squads for the Scottish Cup draw with Patrick and the 1-0 win at Dundee on Saturday.
And on Monday, it was confirmed by Hearts’ official Twitter account that the Republic of Ireland Under-21 international has been axed to the reserves team for their game against Celtic.
Here’s how the Jambos line up for the Reserve game against Celtic! Kick-off comes at 2pm… pic.twitter.com/R7luyaSi5i
— Heart of Midlothian FC (@JamTarts) March 11, 2019
It cannot be a good sign that Shaughnessy’s first team status at Tynecastle is slowly fading away.
He was dubbed to be an exciting young players coming through the ranks at Elland Road, but by the end of this season, the ex-Reading defender could have just 20 senior appearances to his name.
Shaughnessy turns 23 in June, and to play so little first team games at that age is worrying.
Leeds fans should be concerned by the lack of progress the Irish centre-back has made, especially as once he returns to Elland Road in the summer, he will still have two years left on his contract and the Whites could be a Premier League club by then.
It just does not seem as though it’s going to work out at Leeds for Shaughnessy, and the club might want to consider cashing in on him in the summer transfer window.