Pierre-Michel Lasogga is on loan at Leeds United and has been impressive since joining the Whites.
If Leeds boss Paul Heckingbottom still harboured hopes of guiding the Whites to the play-off places in the wake of their defeat to Middlesbrough on Friday, it seems highly likely that Wolves crushed almost all of those hopes when they left Elland Road with a 3-0 win yesterday.
It was a result that keeps Leeds nine points back of the top six, but, perhaps more importantly at this stage, it was a performance that suggested that the closing that gap and getting themselves back into play-off contention this season will be beyond this squad with the side really failing to land a glove on the league leaders.
It may ensure that there are plenty more disappointing results between now and the end of the season, but perhaps it is time for Heckingbottom to make some drastic changes to his team for the remaining weeks of the campaign involving bringing some of the young players into the fold and replacing those who are unlikely to be at Elland Road next year.
One of those players may well be Pierre-Michel Lasogga, who is only on loan with the Championship side from Hamburg. Lasogga tops the club’s goalscoring charts this term having found the back of the net 10 times in the league so dropping him would be a risky move from Heckingbottom, but perhaps now is the right time for Leeds to be ruthless with the striker.
Leeds may want to pursue a deal to sign Lasogga permanently, but it appears, on paper at least, like the Whites could be fighting a losing battle trying to convince the German to stay given the wages that he currently earns with his parent club.
The Yorkshire Evening Post reported back in September that he earns around £50,000 a week but Leeds are paying around a quarter of that salary while he is with the club. So if they are hoping to sign Lasogga permanently – Bild recently reported that Hamburg are ready to sell with relegation looming for them – they will either need the 26-year-old to take a significant wage cut or to break their wage structure to meet his demands.
Lasogga may not even want a return to Leeds if other clubs come calling this summer, and that is why the club should look to ask those questions now.
If they feel that they can do a deal and they sense that Lasogga could stay permanently, then Heckingbottom should, of course, keep him in the team and use him as first-choice.
But if they get the sense that keeping the striker is not going to be achievable, perhaps Heckingbottom needs to be ruthless and use the likes of Caleb Ekuban or even Jay-Roy Grot and some of the other under-23 options for the rest of the campaign if they are going to be at Leeds next season.
If Heckingbottom sets his stall out early and suggests that focus is now entirely on building for next season, he will likely come in for criticism and he should not expect the fans to be patient if the performances are not up to scratch. But with Leeds’ play-off hopes seemingly in tatters, taking a gamble and switching the focus towards next season may not be a terrible idea.
And if it is clear that Lasogga does not feature in those plans for next year, then leaving the club’s top goalscorer on the sidelines for the rest of the season may be a brutal step worth taking.
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