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Confirmed: Leeds seal second midfielder deal of the January window
By Alex Stevens
Leeds midfielder Toumani Diagouraga will join Ipswich on loan for the rest of the season, it was confirmed on Saturday.
Ipswich manager Mick McCarthy revealed after his team’s 2-0 Championship defeat to Huddersfield on Saturday that he is set to add the midfield enforcer to his squad.
The Tractor Boys have taken the chance to land Diagouraga after his talks to join bottom club Rotherham dramatically collapsed.
McCarthy explained that former Brentford midfielder Diagouraga, 29, will be recruited from the Leeds sidelines at the start of next week.
“I have spoken to Leeds about Toumani Diagouraga as well and that is pretty much done,” said McCarthy to the official Ipswich website about his imminent new arrivals.
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“He is a good footballer. He is very mobile. He has got some drive about him. He played in the Brentford team that got to the Play-Offs and he will be a good asset for us.
“It’s good to bring in new faces. It can revitalise the place.”
Diagouraga’s move to Ipswich will be the second Leeds midfielder transfer of the January window after they completing the permanent capture of Pablo Hernandez from Qatari club Al-Arabi on Monday of last week.
Playmaker Hernandez had spent the first half of the season on loan at Elland Road and, after impressing manager Garry Monk, was tied down to a permanent contract that runs until the end of the campaign and has an option for a further 12 months.
The arrivals of the likes of Hernandez, Eunan O’Kane and Liam Bridcutt las summer pushed Diagouraga down the pecking order and he has made only a single Leeds appearance all season.
The former Brentford player joined Leeds on a two-and-a-half-year contract in January of last year.
Football Insider verdict:
Diagouraga has not so much been given the cold shoulder by Monk, as sent to the ice chamber with no food or water for months. For the good of his career, he needs to get a move – either on loan or permanently – before the window cut-off, or he faces the bleak prospect of four more months playing with the kids and as much chance of a first-team chance as the weakest of the club’s academy prospects.
In other Leeds news, Monk has made a shock transfer revelation after meeting with new owner Andrea Radrizzani.
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