Fans can be harsh at times, and many have already written off Laurens De Bock after just seven appearances for the club. Paul Heckingbottom seems to have already seen enough of him as well. However, I think it`s good to take a step back for the moment.
The 25-year-old arrived in January for £1.5m after having played just eight matches all season both due to injury and falling down the pecking order at Club Brugge. His rustiness and lack of match fitness meant he was never going to hit the ground running. He then played his first match in six weeks in the 4-3 defeat against Millwall back in January.
We then have to consider his adaptation to a new league. Speaking to Belgian news outlet Sporza (quotes via the Yorkshire Evening Post
), our no.12 explained the problems of adapting to such a physical league like the Championship:
‘It`s more fighting football, there`s no real building-up. There`s a lot of playing with the long ball and there are a lot of solid players. It was not easy to come here in the winter because everyone was already attuned to each other but all in all the adjustment went smoothly.’
I think we`ll have to beg to differ with Laurens on how “smoothly” the transition has gone, but the point stands that the culture shock of switching to such a physically demanding league is not easy to get over in a space of a few short months.
There is a valid criticism for why we brought in a player from a foreign country with no knowledge of the league mid way through the season. It was another blunder by the recruitment team. When Luke got injured and we needed to strengthen at fullback, a tried and tested replacement should have been found. But we can`t change that now.
At the moment, De Bock is out for a month with a hamstring injury so things are not going to get any easier for him settling into a new country. He probably needs a pre-season and a lot more time on the training field to be ready for the Championship, but will he get that chance? Let me know in the poll if you think the left back should stay.