Pawel Cibicki has made a bright start out on loan, but the future of his Leeds United career is unclear.
Cibicki had never managed to hold down a place in the Whites side during his first season, and it appeared that Marcelo Bielsa came to the same conclusions that prompted both Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbottom to largely write him off.
The – very – smart money still appears to suggest that Cibicki has already played his final game for Leeds. But with the forward less than halfway through a four-year deal with the Whites, perhaps it would be premature to suggest that he stands absolutely no chance of salvaging a career in Yorkshire.
Cibicki has made an encouraging start to life with Molde. In seven league appearances, he has scored once and provided three assists. At Leeds, Barry Douglas tops the assist charts and he has also provided three goals for his teammates.
He also helped his current side reach the play-off round of the Europa League, where Zenit St Petersburg denied the club a place in the group-stages of the competition.
It is a promising start. And if he can improve on that return during the final seven games of the Norwegian season, then perhaps he may return to Leeds with plenty of confidence in the same way that Mateusz Klich did after an excellent stint in the Eredivisie last season.
Like Klich, Cibicki showed just a couple of glimpses of real quality during his first season with Leeds before spending almost all of his time out of the picture.
Cibicki will do incredibly well to enjoy the kind of turnaround that Klich has completed. But with an impressive stint out on loan under his belt, perhaps there could be the slightest temptation from Bielsa to take another look upon his return before deciding once and for all whether there is any reason to keep the forward on the books.
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