During Garry Monk’s time at Elland Road, it felt certain that Wahlqvist would eventually end up at Championship powerhouses Leeds United.
Linus Wahlqvist feels like a target from a whole other era of Leeds United football club. In a way, he is.
Back in 2017, the Elland Road faithful would have laughed in your face if you told them that Marcelo Bielsa would be barking orders from a bucket in West Yorkshire with Leeds playing some of the most attractive football the Championship has ever seen.
Yes, a lot has changed in three years.
Garry Monk was starting to get comfortable in the Elland Road hotseat when The Express linked The Whites with a move for a 20-year-old defender who was turning heads for Norrkoping in his native Sweden.
And, for the next few months at least, the name Wahlqvist was all over the gossip columns with a move to England feeling like a mere matter of time.
Now 23, Wahlqvist still hasn’t stepped foot on English shores, however. And with Leeds on the up under Bielsa, it seems increasingly unlikely that he will follow in the footsteps of Pontus Jansson and, erm, Tomas Brolin.
Wahlqvist has failed to live up to his early potential. He hasn’t won a single Sweden cap in two years, the last of his six coming two years ago, and a move to central Europe hasn’t exactly gone to plan either. These days, the right-back is playing for struggling Dinamo Dresden, sitting just a place above the bottom of the German second tier.
This is a deal Leeds are very unlikely to revisit any time soon.
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