Leeds United has ten players on loan, four of whom have completed their respective seasons.
The countdown to Leeds United’s play-off campaign is getting closer as preparations for their semi-final against Norwich City continue.
The Whites will travel to Carrow Road on Sunday afternoon, looking to put one foot in the Wembley final in their first leg match before returning to Elland Road. Daniel Farke’s side has already won in East Anglia this season, and they have not lost to the Canaries since April 2018.
Leeds United are expecting to bring back Patrick Bamford and Daniel James for this weekend’s game. But can United enhance their roster for the match with players on loan from LS11?
The short answer is: no. The Yorkshire club presently has ten players who play for other clubs in Europe and the Football League.
Jack Harrison, Maximillian Wober, Brendan Aaaronson, Rasmus Kristensen, Marc Roca, and Diego Llorente are just a handful of the players whose seasons have yet to end this season. Sam Greenwood, Luke Ayling, Cody Drameh, and Ian Poveda’s Championship stints at Middlesbrough, Birmingham City, and Sheffield Wednesday each ended on the last day last weekend, and they will now return to Elland Road.
However, these four players will be unable to partake in the final stages of Leeds’ season. A change in loan laws for the 2017/18 season removed the practice of loaning players up to particular dates and replaced it with a new system in which loans were prolonged until the start of the following player registration window.
According to the EFL’s player registration regulations, a player whose Standard Loan expires (or terminates) at the end of the Transferee Club’s Season but before the completion of the League Matches of his Transferor Club (where it is a Member Club) is ineligible to play in any remaining League Matches for the Transferor Club in that Season. Examples of this include (a) different divisions having different season finishes, or (b) a player concluding a loan and his ‘father club’ qualifying for the play-offs.”
So, even though Ayling, Greenwood, Drameh, and Poveda’s seasons have ended, they will only be able to watch the action from the stands. However, the scenario is different for defender Joe Rodon.
At the start of the season, the Welsh international signed a season-long loan from Tottenham Hotspur. Given that Leeds’ season hasn’t ended, the 26-year-old is still able to play for the Whites ahead of their trip to Norwich, where he hopes to add to his 18 league clean sheets.
