Leeds United

Leeds United: Phil Hay backs Cresswell to keep starting role

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Image for Leeds United: Phil Hay backs Cresswell to keep starting role

Phil Hay has been speaking on The Athletic’s Leeds United podcast about how he would consider keeping Charlie Cresswell in the starting lineup.

There has been some slightly more positive news on the absentees within Leeds’ squad as Marcelo Bielsa has confirmed that Diego Llorente is back fit, while Pascal Struijk’s three-game suspension has been served.

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This is naturally good news for Leeds fans who have seen their squad be decimated by injuries, which forced Bielsa to hand Cresswell his league debut last weekend against West Ham United, and despite the news that Llorente and Struijk are back, Hay would like to see Leeds’ young centre-back handed a second start.

Hay spoke about how Cresswell should keep his place.

“I thought both he [Cresswell] and Cooper actually had really good games against a difficult side to play against [West Ham], but Cresswell is settling in very, very nicely.

“Interested from here to see what Bielsa does with him because if you have Llorente back, you assume that he starts ahead of Cresswell, certainly in Bielsa’s mind, but the way Cresswell’s playing, you’d be very tempted to keep him in the team.”

TIF Thoughts on Cresswell…

It was a whirlwind September for Cresswell who was handed his first start of the season for Leeds when they won in the Carabao Cup away to Fulham, then started in the league for the first time and he’s now received a call up to the England Under-21s side to reward his recent performances.

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Who was Bielsa's first competitive game as Leeds manager against?

When Leeds have all of their centre-backs available, they have a great pool to choose from which makes it difficult for Cresswell to establish himself as a regular in the first team, especially given that Llorente is a relatively new signing and a Spanish international so will be expecting to start most games when fit and then Liam Cooper is the club captain so he’s likely to feature in the league.

In other news: ‘Vital to us’, ‘No-brainer’, ‘Get it done ASAP’ – Lots of Leeds fans excited as news emerges

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