Leeds United’s Lewie Coyle following in Charlie Taylor’s footsteps with fine Fleetwood Town form

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Charlie Taylor saved his Leeds United career with a loan spell at Fleetwood Town and Lewie Coyle is making an excellent impact, too.

Lewie Coyle has seized his chance at Fleetwood Town in style. The Leeds United loanee has played just nine League Two games for Fleetwood so far but has won the fans’ Man of the Match award in just under half of those.

Signing a three-year deal at Elland Road before heading out on loan, Coyle clearly has a big future at Leeds, and his hopes of challenging the ever-reliable Luke Ayling for a place in the starting XI will not be harmed by another excellent string of performances in League One.

“We have two good full-backs (Amari’i Bell and Lewie Coyle) who can deliver balls in, so the strikers just need to get in the right areas to get on the end of the balls,” grateful striker Jordy Hiwula told the Blackpool Gazette while manager Uwe Roser lauded Coyle’s ‘tremendous’ crossing ability.

To say the season-long loan looks worth it so far would be an understatement. In fact, Coyle’s temporary stay with The Cod Army looks like having a similar effect on his career to that of Charlie Taylor when he enjoyed an excellent spell with Fleetwood in 2013/14.

When Taylor joined the then-League Two club Leeds on a one-month loan deal in October 2013, the talented young left-back made it clear that he wanted to kick-start his career with the Cod Army.

The York-born defender was out of contract at the end of the season so a move to Fleetwood had a definite make-or-break element. And, after impressing so much that his loan deal was extended until the end of the season, Leeds handed the youngster a three-year contract.

Flash forward to the present day and Taylor has now earned a chance in the Premier League with Burnley after becoming Leeds’ undisputed first-choice left-back. It is no exaggeration to say that Fleetwood, who he helped lead to League One via the play-offs, was something of a watershed moment in his career.

And the same could one day be true of Lewie Coyle.