Leeds United and their supporters are looking forward to securing automatic promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season. Daniel Farke’s men are focused on getting the job done in the remaining eleven games of the campaign and book their ticket for the top flight. However, this has not been a flawless season on and off the pitch for the Whites. The 1-1 draw against West Brom showed that the Leeds side could still be stopped and some of the off-field decisions could still come back to haunt them. The performance of a particular player on loan away from Elland Road should lead to questions for the decision-makers who made the call to let him go this season.
The Whites decided against signing a striker in the winter transfer window despite a clamour from the fans to bring in a new forward given the lack of options up front.
Leeds United manager Daniel Farke decided to gamble with Joel Piroe and backed him to stay fit for the rest of the season to fire them back to the Premier League.
Mateo Joseph has not been good enough and Patrick Bamford has been hardly fit enough to even feature on the bench regularly this season.
Leeds also made the call to loan out Joe Gelhardt after he hardly played any football in the first half of the season and Hull City signed him on a loan deal until the end of the season.
Gelhardt never won the affection of the Leeds boss but at Hull, he has been a regular and has been putting in impressive performances for the Tigers fighting for survival this season.
Leeds United are being forced to watch Gelhardt prove himself at another Championship club
Hull boss Ruben Selles has been a massive admirer of Gelhardt and has been prepared to use him in several roles in the starting eleven since his arrival.
He featured as the attacking midfielder in the system against Plymouth Argyle this week and scored in the home side’s 2-0 win, which moved him away from the relegation zone.
It was only his second goal for Hull since joining the club but his impressive performances have won over the fans and the manager at his loan club.
Gelhardt has played both on the right and left and in the middle as the attacking midfielder for Hull as they push to survive in the Championship this season.
The attacker has shown his versatility and his ability to play in different roles for the team against different opponents according to the needs of the system.
Selles has shown the trust in Gelhardt that Farke never did and the Hull boss has been able to get the best of the forward since he joined Hull in the winter window.
Did Leeds loan out the wrong forward?
Leeds’ striker cupboard is bare at the moment. Joel Piroe is their only viable striker and the club have gambled on his fitness for the rest of the season.
Patrick Bamford has been struggling with injuries all season and he has more or less become a non-entity in the squad despite being the highest-paid player at Leeds.
Mateo Joseph started the season as the frontline striker for Leeds but his struggles to hit the back of the net led to Piroe getting into the starting eleven.
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The Spaniard was shown the kind of trust that Gelhardt never got from Farke, but the forward flattered to deceive and has scored twice all season.
We don’t know how Gelhardt would have fared had he got an opportunity as we don’t know. With Joseph, we now have a decent sample size and for now, it seems he is not good enough for Leeds.
Gelhardt is impressive at a worse team since his loan departure, so there is a chance that he could have done better than Joseph had he received the opportunities at Leeds.
Joseph seems to be the player who needs a loan move to prove himself before he could get a crack at being the number 9 at Elland Road.
