Dallas hopeful of Leeds injury return this term

Journalist Beren Cross has claimed that Leeds United defender Stuart Dallas will be hoping to return from injury before the end of the season, but his chances remain unclear.

Towards the end of last season, it was confirmed that the veteran defender would be facing a ‘lengthy period out of action’ after suffering a femoral fracture.

Consequently, since that Premier League game against Manchester City, the defender has been undergoing rehabilitation and is yet to play in the Whites’ current campaign.

Even at this stage, a return date for the 31-year-old Leeds man is still not known. Despite that, Dallas has travelled with the team to Spain on their five-day training camp and seems to be in good spirits, hoping that he should play at some stage in the new year.

Cross explained his full understanding of the situation on a Facebook stream for LeedsLive, saying: “Dallas has been knocking around and talking and laughing and joking, but I’m led to believe he’s just doing ‘a lot of running’ this week, I think [that] is how his training camp has been described.

“But no indication at all as to how soon Dallas will be back, but I think we’re still looking into 2023, of course.

“I couldn’t say how soon into 2023, but I’m sure he is very, very hopeful that he will play before the end of this season. But we’ll have to see, it was such a serious injury and he’s done so well with his recovery so far. We will have to see how he gets on and how that develops.”

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Before his injury, Dallas had started all 34 league games up to that stage in the season, showing his importance to the team. On top of that, his versatility was also extremely useful as he filled in at left-back, right-back and even in midfield at times.

With that in mind, his return to full fitness would be a great boost to Leeds, who have struggled for consistency this season and sit 15th in the table, just two points above the bottom three.

As per Transfermarkt, the 31-year-old will see his contract expire in 2024. No doubt, Dallas will be glad to have that extra year to get himself fit, as despite the relative optimism, it sounds as though there is a chance that he could not feature again before the season is done.