£225k youngster admits he badly wanted Leeds move while at boyhood club

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The young Leeds United winger Stuart McKinstry has admitted that he wanted to join the Whites ‘so badly’ after hearing of their interest.

McKinstry joined Leeds’ academy ranks from Motherwell last summer – at a reported cost of £225,000 – but has already trained with Marcelo Bielsa’s first team and earned a new three-year contract earlier this year.

Reliving his move south with AJR2022, the teenager said: “I’m really enjoying it, having the chance to have the chance to train with the first team almost every day and the club being in the Premier League – it’s a great opportunity and hopefully that can continue.

“When I heard about the interest, I wanted it so badly, but I’m quite a home person and a Motherwell fan so to make the decision to leave was the hardest of my life.

“I couldn’t make it off the top of my head, I had to look at it in detail and work out the rights and the wrongs of the situation.

“In the end I felt I had to move, I knew how big a club Leeds are and felt I could only go there and get better – it was the challenge I wanted and although leaving Motherwell wasn’t something that I wanted to do, it was too big an opportunity to turn down.

“Right now, that’s paying off, I’m playing every game for the 23s and after a lot of ups and downs during my first 12 months with Leeds I have found myself in a much better position than I was in this time last year.”

McKinstry’s first-team debut may be further away now than had he stayed at Motherwell, where he was an unused substitute against Kilmarnock on Boxing Day 2018.

But Bielsa’s use of academy talent throughout his two-and-a-half year Leeds tenure should serve as encouragement to the Scotland youth international.

McKinstry’s fellow youngsters Matuesz Bogusz, Oliver Casey, Charlie Cresswell, Leif Davis, Robbie Gotts, Alfie McCalmont, Jamie Shackleton, Jordan Stevens and Pascal Struijk have all made their debuts under the Argentine.

Leeds’ newly-achieved category one academy status, enabling their Under-21s to compete against professional clubs in the EFL Trophy, should also aid McKinstry’s development.

Leeds fans – how good can McKinstry go on to be?