OPINION
Marcelo Bielsa’s decision to sign Izzy Brown on loan last summer was always an odd one because straight away, everyone knew that Leeds United fans would not get a glimpse of the Chelsea forward until he had recovered from a serious knee injury.
It is now almost May and Leeds fans have only seen Brown, 22, play for the first team on one occasion when he came off the bench for a nine-minute cameo against QPR in February.
During his time at Elland Road, the ex-West Brom attacker has consistently struggled with different injuries and even though he is now fit, he does not seem to be anywhere near Bielsa’s plans as he played for the Under-23s on Tuesday night.
So why did Bielsa sign Brown? Everyone knew that he was an injury-prone player and out of all of the areas in Leeds’ squad, their attack force was perhaps one of the best prepared areas in the side for the rigours of Championship.
The Yorkshire Evening Post reported that in January, Leeds started paying Brown’s wages as there was an agreement when he signed that Chelsea would cover his £25,000-a-week [Spotrac] pay until he recovered from the knee injury that he sustained last season while on loan at Brighton.
It seemed a fair deal because Leeds knew they were signing someone who wasn’t fit and Chelsea would have had to pay for his wages anyway if he did not head to Elland Road.
What Bielsa and Leeds failed to take into account was how long it would take for Brown to get up to speed to play in competitive first team fixtures.
It took the attacker almost a year to recover from his cruciate ligament injury and after a year without training properly and only doing physio work, there are bound to be other issues that crop up.
Almost as soon as Brown recovered he was hit by a hamstring injury which left him on the sidelines for even longer as Leeds started to pay out his wages.
We are now at the point where there are only two games left to play of the regular season and Brown is still playing for the Under-23s in a bid to either keep up his match fitness or impress Bielsa enough to call him up to the squad that will take on Aston Villa at Elland Road on Sunday.
Either way, it’s too late for Brown to make an impact now.
If he does get into a matchday squad in the next two weeks, or in the play-offs, it’s only going to be as a substitute and there is no way that will justifying paying his wages for the second-half of the season.