Paudie O’Connor has a lot of work to do if he wants to succeed at Leeds United.
There weren’t that many positives for Leeds United last season.
They sacked their manager, Thomas Christiansen, in February and quite a few of Leeds’ pre-season recruits from the summer of 2017 failed to have much impact.
In addition to that, the Elland Road side wound up finishing 13th after Paul Heckingbottom failed to be much of an improvement on Christiansen.
If there were positives, they came in the form of Heckingbottom blooding some youngsters, and one of them was Paudie O’Connor.
The 21-year-old defender started four Championship games during the month of April and it seemed like Leeds had a real talent on their hands.
And although that still might be the case, the young Irishman clearly has a lot of work to do before he’s anywhere near good enough for Marcelo Bielsa’s first-team squad.
O’Connor was loaned to Blackpool in July, but hasn’t made a League One appearance since way back in August despite scoring at Arsenal in the Carabao Cup.
His lack of minutes is a big disappointment, but he arguably hit a new low last night.
He was an unused substitute in Blackpool’s FA Cup win over Solihull Moors last night and if O’Connor isn’t deemed good enough to face teams from the fifth tier of English football then just how far away is he from potentially facing Premier League clubs?
Leeds are top of the Championship with a six-point cushion in the automatic promotion places. There is every chance that O’Connor will be coming back to a Premier League side when his loan finishes, but his spell at Bloomfield Road indicates that he’s a million miles from playing in another meaningful game for United at the moment.
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