Impacts may have to keep coming from the bench for Wilfried Gnonto at Leeds United. The Italian forward, one of the few players to have consistently impressed this season, has been left out of Javi Gracia’s last two starting line-ups.
Gnonto may only have two goals and two assists from 15 Premier League appearances, but what the statistics do not show is the lift he brings to the matches he plays. Time and time again the teenager has cut inside from that left flank, dribbled past defenders and caused carnage in the final third.
The teenager’s first touch, strength, agility and technique have been on another level to so many others in Leeds colours since his debut at Anfield in October. And yet Gracia has seen fit to leave Gnonto on the bench against Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion.
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The Spaniard is not necessarily unhappy with anything Gnonto has done, but he can only pick 11 players for any one game. Gracia has felt the likes of Crysencio Summerville, Jack Harrison and Brenden Aaronson have given Leeds a better chance of winning matches from the start.
"I am very happy with Willy, with all the players I have to choose,” he said. “When I see playing, for example, today Jack [Harrison] and Cree [Summerville], I’m happy with both. The players have to be ready to compete [with] the time they [have] in every single game.
"That’s the only way we can achieve at the end of the season our target. They are good professionals. They know it and they have to accept that, I would like to give more minutes to all of them, but I have to choose."
Luis Sinisterra, Rodrigo and Georginio Rutter all joined Gnonto on Saturday’s bench in a clear sign of the quality Gracia is going to have to keep leaving on the bench in the coming weeks.
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