Phil Hay has been speaking on the latest edition of The Athletic’s The Phil Hay Show about all things relating to Leeds United.
One of the topics that he spent a little bit of time on was team news ahead of the Whites’ clash with West Ham United tonight.
One player who Leeds will be without for the game against the Hammers is Diego Llorente, who will be out for at least two weeks. Hay shed some light on how the Spaniard has ended up on the sidelines again, with the defender hurting himself during the latter stages of last week’s defeat to Chelsea.
He said: “I don’t know if anybody noticed this, but as [Christian] Pulisic knocked in the third goal, Llorente kind of pulled up as he was tracking back.
“This goes back to what [Marcelo] Bielsa was saying about not wanting to rush him and hurry him back into the team, but clearly, [Robin] Koch’s injury meant that there was no option.
“[Bielsa said] Llorente [will be out for] at least two weeks, but probably a little bit longer.”
Do you think Leeds will miss Llorente?
No, we will be fine
Yes, we could struggle
TIF Thoughts on Diego Llorente’s injury…
The Spaniard, who is rated at £18m by Transfermarkt, has not had much luck since he swapped La Liga for the Premier League in the last transfer window as an injury suffered on international duty kept him out until the game against Chelsea.
Llorente then came on to the pitch to replace Robin Koch in the ninth minute, and it looks like he is now injured again.
We feel bad for Llorente, who probably wasn’t expecting to have missed this many games for his new club, but hopefully, he can come back stronger and show Marcelo Bielsa what he is truly capable of for a longer period of time, having performed quite well in that 3-1 defeat to the Blues.
The Whites have plenty of options at centre-back, so we feel they should have no real problems replacing Llorente until he is ready to return.