Don’t let his display last night fool you, there’s still a lot more to come out of him.
It pains me to say it because I really do think he has something to offer, especially based on his promising start last season, but when it comes to Jack Harrison I’m just not seeing it so far this season.
If you just look at the part he played for our goal last night, the best way you can really describe his contribution is lucky. As soon as he picked the ball up I found myself screaming ‘do something with it, do something, do something’, only for him to be bailed out by Alioski charging down the left flank to save him.
I have said before that I’m not 100% convinced by people going on about his ‘work-rate’, and that he needs to be contributing in a more tangible way, something that we can record on a stats sheet, and although he’ll probably get the assist last night (possibly, I have no idea how assists work with own goals, and I reckon the dubious goals committee might have something to say about it), as I said before it seemed like he was incredibly lucky in what he did rather than through any sort of skill.
Given the injury to Pablo Hernandez, he has earnt himself a little bit of breathing room as Helder Costa has taken Hernandez’s role instead of his, so if he wants to keep hold of that jersey, he’s going to have to make a huge difference to the team going forward.
One other factor that we need to consider in all this is the emergence of Tyler Roberts into the fold. He played 28 times last year in the Championship and although he was used predominantly as a centre-forward, he certainly wasn’t averse to being played out wide on either flank, so Harrison has got some more competition for his spot.
What about you? Do you think that Harrison’s display last night helped his case when it comes to being a regular in the Leeds team? Or do you think that he’s playing very much on borrowed time?