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Should Leeds Be Concerned About A January Recall – Certainly Not At This Stage

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One story that was always going to feed itself at Leeds United during the lull in action for the October international break was the ongoing debate about whether manager Marcelo Bielsa should keep faith with Patrick Bamford, or turn his attentions to on loan Arsenal starlet Eddie Nketiah.

A natural fallout from that debate, with Nketiah’s game time so far, were pundit suggestions that his parent club would automatically look to recall him if game time and starts didn’t improve, yet they have no knowledge of that and as others argued, we were just as likely to lose him if he was Bielsa’s go-to striker and we saw improved performances from him on a goalscoring front.

Ultimately now it appears pundits and fans alike have drawn lines in the sand on Bamford and how much better Nketiah could be, despite the wild assumptions those opinions lean on.

With so much talk about a recall though, it was only ever going to be a matter of time before reports countered that narrative and suggested that Arsenal remained happy with his progress, and Leeds had no concerns about losing him in January.

Manager Director Angus Kinnear is already on record as saying.

“It’s fairly standard in these contracts to have January recalls but the decision is based on how well the loan’s going so if the players are playing, and they’re playing well, and they’re enjoying their football and they’re developing, which I think we can evidence in both Ben and Eddie’s case, then you’d be fairly confident that they recall wouldn’t be activated by the parent club.”

Now, this debate certainly isn’t going to go anywhere and it’s going to be regular during the buildup to the January window, and no doubt throughout the window as well, but fans should really ignore it. Arsenal know it’s the 20-year-old’s first spell away from the club and given Bamford’s overall goalscoring record, I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect him to replace him and suddenly get 40 starts.

There will be a plan and an agreement of sorts between the clubs and as long as we honour that, the guff in the media based on nothing but their own guesswork, really shouldn’t be taken to heart.

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