Patrick Bamford will miss four months of Championship football for Leeds United, so should Caleb Ekuban have been kept at Elland Road?
Caleb Ekuban did not wait long to make an impact at Trabzonspor. The on-loan striker has scored once in just four minutes of action for the Turkish Super Lig side – as many goals as he managed in 991 minutes at Leeds United last season.
Ekuban was one of the many underwhelming Victor Orta signings who failed to make an impact at Elland Road under Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbottom last season.
But with the new man at the helm, Marcelo Bielsa, proving his ability to get the best out of players that many had written off, including Kemar Roofe, Mateusz Klich and Gianni Alioski, it is interesting to wonder whether he would have got a tune out of Ekuban.
One thing is for sure, the Ghanaian could have come in handy right now. Because Patrick Bamford is set for four months on the sidelines with a cruciate ligament injury, leaving Roofe as Leeds’ only centre-forward for the foreseeable future.
There is no guarantee that Ekuban could have thrived under Bielsa but he clearly has goals in him. The 24-year-old scored 18 times for Partizani Tirana in 2016/17 to earn a move to West Yorkshire.
So the decision to loan him out at the end of August with no replacement being brought in could be considered a little short-sighted.
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