Wilfried Gnonto’s Leeds emergence sees Joe Gelhardt loan move on the cards - The Athletic 19/1/23
By Phil Hay
Emerging talent is what seems to bring Leeds United alive in
the transfer market. They sign players from older age groups too but there is
something undeniably enticing for them about the untapped footballer, the deal
for tomorrow, the name that rings no household bells.
Nothing is unknown in the game these days, or not in the
corridors of competent recruitment departments, but one of Victor Orta’s
passions is to find prospects who make him sit up before the wider world takes
notice.
He was one of a handful of scouts who attended South
America’s Under-20 championship before it was fashionable. Now that tournament
attracts hundreds of pairs of eyes, a vain exercise in trying to see what
others have not spotted.
Leeds are back in those circles again — junior circles,
rather than South American — with a strong interest in Diogo Monteiro, a
17-year-old Portuguese centre-back who plays for Servette in Switzerland’s
Super League. He is 18 in little over a week’s time, at which point Leeds can
formalise an offer for him, and with that transfer mooted, it occurs again that
squads and pecking orders never stand still, especially at youth-team level.
Pure brilliance from Wilfried Gnonto ✨
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) January 18, 2023
His stunning outside of the foot volley puts Leeds United in front against Cardiff City ⚪️
Reminiscent of Paolo Di Canio's strike against Wimbledon all those years ago...
🎥 @itvfootball#LUFC | #LEECAR pic.twitter.com/KjXfRXqqHS
One moment Charlie Cresswell, midway through a loan at
Millwall, is the young central defender ranked as flavour of the month at
Elland Road. Then, quickly, the sands shift and Monteiro is being targeted at
the same time as Leeds are discussing whether Cresswell might be sold in this
window. At least one prominent Championship club want Cresswell permanently and
the option is not off the table. It is not even 18 months since the England
Under-21 international made his Premier League debut, and a good one at that.
The same jostling for position is going on up front, where
Leeds suddenly find themselves with ample players to work with and, improbably,
more than they truly need.
There was no Georginio Rutter in last night’s FA Cup replay
against Cardiff City, ineligible having signed from Hoffenheim after the
initial tie in Wales, but he is Leeds’ record signing and the answer to
questions put to Jesse Marsch about where precisely Rutter might slot into his
starting line-up can only be somewhere.
The most two-footed player that Marsch says he has ever seen
is not supposed to occupy the bench. Luis Sinisterra was included after his
recovery from a foot injury, the first time he has been seen since October.
There is £50million-worth of talent in those two pairs of feet alone — enough,
one would think, to give Leeds’ gruelling season some oxygen.
Willy Gnonto, Crysencio Summerville, Mateo Joseph and Sonny
Perkins: the holding pen is rammed before Marsch even looks to the
most-experienced forwards available to him, Patrick Bamford and Rodrigo.
This leaves Joe Gelhardt, for a while the golden boy and the
magnet for hype at Leeds. The Liverpudlian is precocious and streetwise and
still young at 20. But at 20, he is older than some of the others he is
competing with and, for the past few weeks, Leeds have been debating whether to
send him out on loan. A move to the Championship would be easy to set up and
Swansea City are one of the teams most interested in him. A run of goals from
someone like Gelhardt would do Swansea’s shot at the play-offs no harm.
He was on the bench against Cardiff last night, in a tie
when an extended run-out for him would normally have made sense, but it was
Marsch’s prerogative to attack the game in a way which kept the wolf from the
door.
Leeds stood by their head coach after a tense defeat at
Aston Villa last Friday, resolving over the weekend that he would press on in
the job, but the camel’s back will only take so many straws. And as if proof of
the changing hierarchy was needed, Gnonto supplied more with a waft of genius
in the first minute: a Paolo Di Canio-esque volley with the outside of his
right boot which was borne half of pure technical ability and half of the
rampant confidence the Italian has shown in England.
It is not only Gelhardt who will struggle to shift him.
Marsch would not sacrifice Gnonto for Rutter either.
To coin a phrase, that goal was worth the ticket price alone
and Gnonto was at Cardiff’s throat throughout, unlucky not to finish with a
hat-trick. He is becoming Raphinha in the sense that the crowd locks in
instantly as soon as he threatens to cut loose. Cardiff were hardly in it and
were done completely before half-time by Rodrigo smashing in a second and Gnonto
drilling in a third. The easy progression Marsch wanted was his, with no
nonsense and no fall-out.
Gelhardt watched from the touchline, observing a pleasingly
methodical win until he replaced Gnonto for the latter stages. Bamford got
Leeds’ last goals of the night, two neat finishes for 5-0 and one assisted by
Gelhardt as Cardiff wilted and the scoreline threatened to run to 10.
Unexpectedly, it finished at 5-2 after a moment of slack defending let Callum
Robinson nod in from close range and a contentious penalty for handball against
Marc Roca gifted him a second in injury-time.
Leeds see a possible loan for Gelhardt as part of his
development and a route to more minutes, which is to say that his place in the
club’s longer-term vision is not at risk at this stage. He has a long contract,
to 2027, but he has been caught for a while between his own form and the club’s
peripheral use of him, unable to spread his trickery across the pitch at Elland
Road. Gnonto, evidently, will be part of the answer to where Leeds’ season goes
from here. Gelhardt’s time looks like coming later.
