Sebastian Larsson is likely to leave Sunderland this summer – but he could have already been playing Championship football with Leeds United.
With Leeds United stumbling over the final hurdle and missing out on the Championship play-offs, it’s easy to hark back to the club’s recruitment, or lack thereof, in the January transfer window.
With Pablo Hernandez’s form dipping alarmingly in the second half of the season, Garry Monk had no one to call upon to take over the creative baton.
Although is it possible to go back as far as the summer to wonder what might have been. The Chronicle reported in June that Monk was interested in bringing Sunderland’s long-serving Swedish international Sebastian Larsson to Elland Road.
The former Birmingham City favourite has been transformed from an orthodox winger into a ball-playing central midfielder in recent seasons and it’s easy to claim that his set piece specialty and eye for a pass could have come in handy in a blunt Leeds side come the springtime.
After all, The Whites lost three games without scoring a goal in April.
Scheming Sebastian
However, although the 31-year-old has plenty of Premier League pedigree having played over 300 games in the top flight, the statistics hardly suggest that Leeds made a mistake not bringing him from Wearside to South Yorkshire.
Larsson has not contributed a goal or an assist in a dismal Sunderland side this season. In fact, since the start of the 2015/16 campaign, the one-time Arsenal prospect has only created one goal for his team-mates.
Therefore, it’s difficult to make the argument that Larsson would have pushed Leeds across the line and provided that much-needed cutting edge.
Despite Sunderland’s relegation, and the fact his contract expires this summer, it makes little sense for Leeds to view Larsson as the answer to their creative woes.
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