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Hay: Izzy Brown won’t play for Leeds again

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Yorkshire Evening Post journalist Phil Hay is convinced that Izzy Brown will not play for Leeds again. 

The 22-year-old attacker joined from Chelsea but was injured when he signed and didn’t get back to full fitness until December.

After suffering a setback, he didn’t make an appearance for the first-team until the final stages of the game against QPR in February. Leeds were 1-0 down when Brown came on the pitch and he had no impact, bar an instant yellow card.

Hay was talking on the new episode of the Inside Elland Road podcast and said that it was “strange” that Bielsa was playing so many first-team players, like Brown and Kalvin Phillips, in the Under-23s game against Newcastle on Tuesday night.

“It does seem strange that with a few games to go you’ve got Phillips getting 45 minutes for the 23s,” said Hay.

“It’s how Bielsa likes to keep them sharp but there are so few games left you’d think it would be a case of battening down the hatches.

“Instead you had others involved, you had Berardi, Izzy Brown, who I am convinced is not going to play again. There just seems no way back for him.”

OPINION

Leeds took a gamble with Izzy Brown and it hasn’t paid off. There’s always a risk when you sign someone who’s injured but Brown took longer than expected to come back to action and then suffered a setback on his return. If he doesn’t play again, it does seem a bit odd though. Brown was given nine minutes in the game against QPR, when Leeds were in desperate need of a goal. It wasn’t the ideal introduction for Brown and he certainly looked off the pace and out his depth. However, that’s surely to be expected after a year out, and if he doesn’t get another chance at Elland Road he’ll probably head back to Chelsea a bit disgruntled. Bielsa doesn’t like to change his team – which is why him dropping Phillips for the game against Brentford was so odd – but they’ve been lacking in creativity and you’d have thought Brown would have been given a chance to show what he can do. Instead, it seems that his time at Elland Road will total nine pretty embarrassing minutes. We imagine Brown will be looking for another loan move in the summer but we doubt Leeds will be back in for him. 

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