Aside from Sam Greenwood at Preston North End, Leeds United’s five loanees aren’t enjoying the best time of it at the moment.
Alongside Greenwood, Jack Harrison, Rasmus Kristensen, Darko Gyabi and Sonny Perkins are all currently on loan away from Elland Road.
In what is his second year at Everton, Harrison is facing major confidence issues. He has not scored since February, with his last assist even further back than that at almost 12 months.
Kristensen had been enjoying life at Eintracht Frankfurt until picking up a pretty serious injury recently, while Perkins finally got off the mark for Leyton Orient at the weekend.
Greenwood is undoubtedly in the best form, having now scored in three successive Championship matches for PNE, despite their struggles as a team.
Leeds loanee Darko Gyabi struggles despite huge Plymouth win
It almost feels like Greenwood’s upturn in performances have directly coincided with the struggles of another Leeds loanee Gyabi.
Gyabi had drawn big praise from Wayne Rooney prior to the October international break but is not said to have hit the same levels since returning from England U20s duty.
And despite Plymouth’s enormous 1-0 win over Portsmouth on Tuesday night, it appears Gyabi was still someway from his best.
Gyabi lost possession nine times in the game at Home Park, and while that doesn’t sound a lot, he only touched the ball on 29 occasions. That effectively means he gave the ball away once every three touches.
Off the ball, Gyabi was shown a first half yellow card, and was unsuccessful in all four of his ground duels, while being dribbled past on two occasions.
Despite his seemingly sub-par display, Gyabi did play the full 90 minutes and should take confidence from Plymouth’s return to winning ways against a relegation rival.
What Plymouth’s local media made of Gyabi display
Gyabi was given a fairly solid rating of six by the Plymouth Herald in their post-match piece, though their description of his performance to go with it wasn’t overly praising.
The only involvements of note came when Gyabi was shown a yellow card in the first half, before then missing a really good opportunity to put Plymouth ahead.
Either way, it is these fluctuations in form which a youngster like £5m signing Gyabi can only learn from, in what is his first full season playing senior football.
They wrote: “Darko Gyabi 6 – The Pilgrims’ loan signing returned to the centre of midfield after not being allowed to play against his parent club Leeds United at Elland Road on Saturday.
“Was booked in the first half for a tackle on Freddie Potts and soon afterwards had a good scoring chance but sent a shot off target after Julio Pleguezuelo headed the ball down inside the Portsmouth box.”
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