When it was announced a little under a week ago that Leeds United were in talks with Swansea over Kyle Bartley, many a fan’s heart began to flutter.
Bartley has, of course, spent a season on loan at Elland Road when his former boss at Swansea, Garry Monk, took over the helm at the Whites. Monk led Leeds United to a very creditable 7th place last season, a season where they were in the play-off picture for 26 games, 142 days.
During that season, Manchester-born Bartley featured in 45 games for the Whites, scoring six goals and providing two assists. But, more importantly than those figures, the former Arsenal youngster helped to solidify the centre of the Leeds United defence and turn the Whites into something of a formidable defensive unit.
That formidability has, this season at least, taken on something of a tarnished nature as the Whites have succumbed to defeat after defeat – twenty in total for the season and with still one game left to add to that misery.
Since the announcement, the news has been quashed somewhat by Swans boss Carlos Carvalhal, the former Sheffield Wednesday manager pouring cold water on flames that Leeds United fans fancied fanning.
Despite protestations echoing from the South Wales club, the feeling is that Leeds United are still in for a deal. However, news from the club itself is of the tight-lipped nature, as typified by the response for head coach Paul Heckingbottom in today’s pre-QPR presser.
Speaking to BBC Radio Leeds’ West Yorkshire Sport programme, Heckingbottom was coy about the rumours regarding Kyle Bartley. When asked by interviewer Adam Pope about the Kyle Bartley situation and what he’d bring to the club, the Leeds boss was tight-lipped in his response.
In answering the question Heckingbottom said, “Everyone’s seen his qualities from the last time he led the team consistently. He played a high number of games, defended well and, you know, looking from the outside at the time playing against them that’s what you knew you were playing against. Strong defensively and they were the qualities he showed when he was here.”
When pressed further by Popey, as to whether Bartley was a man that he might want ‘going forward’, Heckingbottom laughed and reminded the BBC Radio Leeds man, “You know I don’t say that.”
