Two check-in, two check out. Rob Price will still have the 10 beds set aside at Thorp Arch on Monday morning based on Leeds United’s full-time headcount yesterday.
Just as Pascal Struijk and Rodrigo return to the matchday squad, with the former imperious on his return to the starting line-up, United supporters were allowing themselves some hope until the rug was pulled once more.
To see both Junior Firpo and Adam Forshaw, two of the very few senior options fit and sharp for Leeds, limp off within 25 minutes of a bright start, with the same injury, could only draw tears or laughter.
This injury hex is beyond parody. For Forshaw to limp off just two days after signing the new contract which drew a line under two years of injury hell was the neatest, cruellest way to sum up this season.
Unlike the previous weekend, chairman Andrea Radrizzani was alongside Angus Kinnear and Victor Orta in London Stadium to see his charges craft arguably their performance of the season.
The Italian is sure to have been over the moon with how his side played and what it means for their outlook on the league table with the halfway point now behind them.
Radrizzani was already well aware of the injury crisis engulfing the club and the onus on him and the board to find reinforcements for the second half of the season.
Seeing Firpo and Forshaw limp off at first hand will have rammed home the call for signings even harder, especially while the game remained in the balance after what was such a promising start.
Even when the injury crisis looks like it’s improving, it suddenly takes another two steps backwards.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the match about the transfer market, Marcelo Bielsa said: “It gets complicated because players come back and we lose others. We will see how we can solve it."
Diego Llorente will be available for the Newcastle United game this weekend. That’s one more Bielsa can count on.
Firpo and Forshaw join Liam Cooper, Patrick Bamford, Tyler Roberts, Kalvin Phillips, Joe Gelhardt, Charlie Cresswell, Sam Greenwood and Jamie Shackleton on the list of absentees which missed the West Ham win.
Bielsa retains high hopes for Bamford, with Shackleton and Roberts rated as outside chances for the Magpies clash at Elland Road.
Two weeks of the window remain.
