The majority of Leeds United’s team is on international duty for the next week or two.
Only Patrick Bamford, Crysencio Summerville, Joel Piroe, Sam Byram, Jaidon Anthony, Illan Meslier, and Georginio Rutter are not on international duty with their respective countries, with the latter only missing out due to injury.
Several players, including the Welsh five, will compete in vital qualification matches, while others, such as Junior Firpo, will only play friendlies.
This is Firpo’s first time representing the Dominican Republic since pledging allegiance to his birth country. However, it appears that he will miss Leeds’ first game back at Watford.
The Dominicans’ final international encounter of the season is on Wednesday, March 27th, in Peru, and will begin at 1.30am UK time, making for an exceedingly tight turnaround.
Byram is already a guaranteed starter for Leeds.
Firpo’s game will not end until the early hours of Wednesday morning, and he will then have a long journey back to Leeds, leaving him with little recovery time.
Given his injury troubles in the first half of the season, starting him at Watford on Friday would be a bad idea.
This implies that, if Byram can stay fit during the break, he is already a lock to start at left-back for the game at Vicarage Road, despite spending the majority of the last few weeks as a backup.
Firpo has really helped boost Leeds’ attacking threat down the left with five assists and so Byram will be charged with performing similar against the Hornets, and he surely isn’t a bad backup to have.
Given the short turnaround between Good Friday against Watford and Easter Monday against Hull City, some rotation may not be a bad thing.
