And so we reach the final chapter, for now at least, in the Eddie Nketiah and Leeds United tale.
But there was still time for one final twist at the end, and one that I wasn’t best pleased about. With the news coming out that Arsenal were set to recall the 20-year-old, there was still time for him to get in one final game as Leeds and West Bromwich Albion played out a 1-1 draw.
Nketiah managed to make it through the first 45 minutes at The Hawthorns, before being withdrawn at half-time and replaced by Patrick Bamford. My problem with this, is that given everyone was aware of the circumstances before the game surrounding Nketiah, should he have played at all?
In my mind, once Arsenal had announced their intention to recall him, that should have been that, and he should not have played against West Brom. We should have started to put the plans in place for what is going to happen now that he has left the club, and that meant that we put someone like Ryan Edmondson on the bench instead and have Bamford start the game.
And if you take a look at his statistics from last night, Nketiah only touched the ball 14 times, didn’t commit a tackle and only attempted eight passes, earning him an overall score of 5.8/10. So he wasn’t as effective in the game as he could have been, meaning if he didn’t play, would we really have missed him?
Add to the fact that we got our only goal of the game when Bamford came on, and logic dictates that we might have been able to maybe grab another if he was on the pitch a little bit longer.
Will Ryan Edmondson break into the first team this season?
Yes
No
What about you? Do you think that we should have officially cut ties with Nketiah sooner rather than later and possibly given someone like Edmondson a run out? Or are you glad that we gave him that ‘one last hurrah’ at the end?