Eunan O’Kane was touted as being the new captain of Leeds United last summer. His form and tenacity were exemplary in pre-season and he was set to play a key role in the battle for promotion. After a good start it all went horribly wrong, and the end is near at Leeds.
For me it all started going wrong for O’Kane at the Yorkshire Derby in Sheffield. Wednesday thumped us, only Samu Saiz really turned up on the day and the centre of the park was appalling. Kalvin Phillips partnered a shabby looking Eunan O’Kane and despite the pair having a disaster Ronaldo Vieira was left on the bench, Thomas Christiansen must have known something we didn’t.
he's on the list to go, along with others I've mentioned previously
— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) July 12, 2018
Just a day later it was revealed that O’Kane had played with cracked ribs…it added up but the question had to be asked, why? Why would O’Kane agree to play if he wasn’t fit, why would Thomas Christiansen play him knowing he had cracked ribs? Daft, and the criticism came in and quite rightly. Ronaldo Vieira was fully fit and had sat and watched us get picked apart at Hillsborough.
After that things went from bad to worse. Confidence was shot throughout the team and O’Kane was suffering more than most. The midfield pairing of O’Kane and Phillips wasn’t working whatsoever and as the form of the pair dipped dramatically Thomas Christiansen continued to ignore Mateusz Klich and Ronaldo Vieira. Eventually Vieira came in but the team was crumbling.
O’Kane never recovered, I can’t remember him having a good game after that and as the new year came in things were getting grim. On the occasions he did play it wasn’t good, he worked as hard if not harder than any other player but that wasn’t helping his cause because confidence had seemingly drained his ability to produce the performances and Marcelo Bielsa will have seen that in his footage of last season.
O’Kane has been a name unmentioned for most of this summer until it was revealed he scored for the under 23’s in a behind closed doors game last week. It’s now confirmed that Bielsa wants to get rid of the player just one year into his new deal.
