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Lichaj’s Leeds loan lengthened

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Photo by ISIphotos.com

American fullback Eric Lichaj has had his loan to Leeds United extended until May 7, keeping him at Elland Road through the end of the League Championship regular season.

Lichaj joined Leeds on loan from Aston Villa in early February and has started and gone the full 90 minutes in each of the seven matches since that time. He was brought in to replace starting right back Paul Connolly, who is nearing his return from a hamstring injury.

Leeds manager Simon Grayson hasn't kept his hopes of extending Lichaj's loan silent, and he received his wish, although Villa has the option to recall Lichaj on a day's notice. Nine more matches remain in Leeds' regular season, and the team is in the mix for direct promotion or the league's promotion playoff.

What do you think about this development? Happy to see Lichaj ride the season out with Leeds? How would you rate his season so far?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Caveat to the one-day recall option is that the recall option can only be used after the first 28 days of the loan have past.

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  2. This is great for Lichaj! More playing time and experience. It also helps to play for a coach that has confidence in him. If Leeds gets promoted, he might get the opportunity to unpack his bag.

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  3. Wasn’t getting playing time with the original gaffer… Went down to a team that has a likely chance of being promoted = sold to them in the summer.

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  4. have them try to guess the meaning. give them the context that it’s a headline on a soccer site. it would be interesting to see how they do. maybe then journalists would stop getting cute, and start getting real.

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  5. yeah, say that five times really fast. makes you wonder about the lives of journalists: are they really that boring?

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  6. This is probably the best thing that Lichaj could have hoped for given his situation at AV. Let’s hope he continues to get regular minutes once the starter comes back from injury.

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  7. I think that it’s great that the Leeds manager was adamant to extend the loan–that, along with all of the PT he’s getting, should give him a boost of confidence. The fact that Villa had the one-day recall written into the contract could be interpreted as AV considering some sort of circumstance where it would be necessary to pull him back to the team, which is also good (obviously, that’s me speculating).

    I would have preferred for his first-team experience with Villa to have worked out better, but I think that this is the next best thing. The Championship is still a very competitive league, Leeds is a good team, and all of that playing time means that he’s 1) staying match fit and 2) getting a lot of experience.

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