Troy Deeney has expressed his belief that Wales’ defeat last night will have an impact on club football at Leeds United.
Leeds’ Welsh quartet’s goal of competing in this summer’s EUROs came tumbling down in Cardiff after a penalty shootout defeat to Poland.
Ethan Ampadu and Joe Rodon both played 120 minutes for Rob Page’s side, while Connor Roberts was forced to leave injured, but Dan James will be the most affected right now.
After both teams scored nine of the first penalty kicks, James missed the decisive one, costing Wales a spot in the tournament in three months.
However, given the nature of the Championship, Leeds’ Welshman will have little time to recover from the defeat, as the Whites return to action on Good Friday against Deeney’s previous side Watford.
Given the high standard of the promotion race this season, Leeds cannot afford too many slip-ups in the last eight matches, and Daniel Farke will need his Welshmen to get back on track.
Deeney anticipates whether Wales’ disappointment would effect Leeds’ promotion campaign.
A Leeds supporter asked Deeney live on talkSPORT if Wales’ disappointing performance could impact their club form.
He provided a thunderous response that should put Leeds supporters at ease, implying that they will all want to get back on the field as soon as possible to put the incident behind them.
He replied, “No, I don’t think so. When you go with the national team, and I’ve been there, the boys have this attitude of, ‘wow, that was good, now let’s get back to it.’
“I noticed Virgil van Dijk’s post last night, saying it’s nice to be with the national team, but let’s focus on Liverpool. It’s completely different switches, and some of them will have been friendlies, whereas Wales definitely wasn’t.
“But I think the boys at Leeds are on a fantastic push and will know, especially someone like Dan James, that if he’s not performing well, given the caliber of players in their team, he’ll be dropped to the bench. He’ll just want to get back into football as soon as possible.”
James may use Wales’ pain as Leeds motivation.
According to James, he has had the best season of his career at Leeds, and he cannot afford to lose confidence at such a critical point in the season.
James has 12 goals and seven assists in the league thus far, and he will likely play a significant role in the run-in, whether from the bench or starting.
In fact, James may use his devastating disappointment as incentive to move forward and avoid feeling that experience again this season.
With Willy Gnonto out due to injury, James might potentially return to Leeds’ starting lineup against Watford on Friday, and what better way to forget about the events of the week than with a goal and a win.
