With pre-season acting as a great opportunity to showcase your talents and prove that you should be in the first-team plans, some players won’t even be given that chance.
Having announced that we will be staying at Leeds United for the upcoming season after a nervy few weeks where it was thought he would depart, Bielsa has already started making moves in the transfer window without a ball being kicked.
One of those players who finds himself heading out the door is young Irish defender Paudie O’Connor, with Football League World reporting that the 21-year-old Irishman is set to make a move back on-loan to Bradford City, where he spent the latter half of last season on loan, after an initial spell at Blackpool.
O’Connor will be hoping to get more game time than he did last year when he struggled to make as many appearances as he would have liked to due to Football League rules, as a result he only managed to make nine appearances. With this likely to be the first loan signing that Gary Bowyer’s side makes this season, here’s hoping that means he’s more of a priority for The Bantams and as a result, gets more game time.
With this being the final year of his contract, he’ll need as much game time as he can get. With Marcelo Bielsa already proving his ruthlessness with the departure of Yosuke Ideguchi after his two failed loan spells, this will be his last chance to prove he belongs at Elland Road.