Leeds U23s’ game on Monday was a bit more interesting than usual.
Indeed, there was plenty of publicity around the young team’s trip to Hillsborough as it saw Jean-Kevin Augustin make his first appearance in a United shirt.
Unfortunately, the Frenchman’s debut didn’t go to plan.
He failed to find the net, and he went down injured just moments before half-time before being subbed off at the interval.
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Luckily, his injury doesn’t seem too serious as Graham Smyth stated that he’s expected to train as normal throughout the week, but this should be a massive wake-up call to everyone at Elland Road.
You can understand why Marcelo Bielsa wanted to ease Augustin into the team via the U23s, he wanted him to learn the system before playing for the first-team while also keeping up his match sharpness by turning out for the youth side, but it’s simply too risky of a strategy to keep using at this point of the season.
We have just 16 league games to go, and even the smallest injuries could affect United’s promotion chances.
Even if Augustin was ruled out for just over a week with an injury on Monday he’d have missed games against fourth-placed Nottingham Forest and fifth-placed Brentford, and with Patrick Bamford’s form once again being called into question the Whites could probably do with having the RB Leipzig loanee fit for those games.
You’re always taking a risk when you elect for your first-teamers to play for your reserve outfit, and luckily Leeds got away with one on this occasion.
Bielsa and co should admit that they’ve had a lucky escape here and stop using first-teamers in the U23s, despite the fact that they have been doing it all season.
In other news, Marcelo Bielsa still has some explaining to do after this weekend.