One Leeds Fan Channel presenter Conor McGilligan has been left frustrated after it was revealed that Leeds United striker Joe Gelhardt is injured again.
The presenter was speaking on Thursday’s upload to the channel, ahead of the Whites’ Premier League trip to Anfield to face Liverpool this weekend.
Leeds head coach Jesse Marsch revealed in Thursday’s pre-match press conference that Gelhardt would be a doubt for Saturday’s Premier League clash, amongst a number of other players.
The young striker has already endured multiple injury concerns this season, and Marsch will be sweating upon his fitness over the next couple of weeks.
And McGilligan is both frustrated and concerned at the number of injuries Gelhardt has picked up in his short career so far.
“I almost started laughing when you saw Joe Gelhardt and Rodrigo out again,” McGilligan told One Leeds Fan Channel.
“Gelhardt out again, you’ve got to be available. Listen, we always talk about Joe Gelhardt, we always talk about his minutes-to-goal ratio, I certainly do, I think he should have more minutes.
“But he’s also injured all the time. Which makes it an even bigger farce of what [Angus] Kinnear was talking about, how we’ve got the youngest player, the youngest player in the Premier League who’s getting minutes-to-goal ratio.
“Well, that doesn’t stack up because as I said you never give him minutes and he’s injured.”
TIF Thoughts on McGilligan’s comments…
We agree with McGilligan and believe that it must be frustrating for both Gelhardt and the club for the striker to be unavailable for so much of the time, especially with Patrick Bamford’s questionable injury record.
The 20-year-old has been able to play in just 15% of minutes available to him in the senior team this season according to Transfermarkt, suggesting that his development is likely to be stunted through a lack of senior game time.
We can therefore see why McGilligan finds the young striker’s injury record a great frustration, and believe that the youngster would be further along in his progression had he been able to compete with senior players more often this season.