Leeds United

Leeds United: Fans react as Phil Hay compares Junior Firpo with Ezgjan Alioski

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Image for Leeds United: Fans react as Phil Hay compares Junior Firpo with Ezgjan Alioski

A number of Leeds United fans have been left feeling a little concerned after Phil Hay published an article dissecting Junior Firpo’s start to life at the club.

Over the summer, Leeds saw one left-back leave the club and another come in as a replacement. After four years in Yorkshire, Ezgjan Alioski moved on having failed to agree a new contract.

In his place, Leeds brought in Firpo from Barcelona for a reported fee of £12.8m. Now, seven games into the Premier League season, Hay decided to write about the defender’s progress so far.

In an article published on The Athletic, Hay spoke about how Alioski was ‘fully indoctrinated’ into Marcelo Bielsa’s system, and therefore, training sessions and matchdays were ‘second nature’ to him.

Having just arrived from Barcelona, Firpo, on the other hand, has had a lot of learning to do. This left Hay to conclude that the former left-back left ‘bigger shoes to fill than anyone realised’.

He shared his thoughts on Twitter and it drew a concerned response from many Leeds supporters.

Here’s what these Leeds fans said…

“I’m sure he’s a nice guy but can’t we just have Allioski back?”

“Generally very poor so far. Watford showed some promise but they were dreadful. Not hopeful.”

“Not great, lacks Alioski’s courage and energy, probably a better footballer, but hard-pressed to call him a better defender at this point.”
“Looks Leggy and unbalanced for me. Almost like he’s playing out of position. He’s a defender, so has to be able to defend first and foremost”
“Terrible, not a patch on alioski’s performances for leeds”
“Bielsa ball is very demanding and takes most players a full pre-season and a few games to get used to. So far firpo has been poor defence and even though he gets in good position in attack not really been involved in many goal creating movements. 4/10 so far from me.”

Evidently, many of these Leeds fans are yet to be convinced by what they’ve seen from the new man at left-back – it sounds as if they’d much rather still have Alioski with their side.

Was Junior Firpo a poor singing by Leeds?

Yes

Yes

No

No

Even so, Firpo is still in the very early stages of his time at the club, having played just eight games for them so far. Perhaps he just needs a little more time to adapt.

In other news: ‘Massive’ – Journalist buzzing over ‘big news’ for Leeds

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