With contract ripped up, player has delivered lethal Leeds parting shot that must prompt changes
COMMENT By Richard Parks
With his contract terminated, Eoghan Stokes let rip with a lethal parting shot at ex-club Leeds United that must prompt changes.
Anyone connected with the club should take heed of the illuminating comments from the striker, who joined as a 15-year-old starry-eyed schoolboy and left six years later as a young man sick to the back teeth of development football where there is no pressure to secure results or points.
“Over there with the U23s you are playing with kids, it’s all about development. If you win, happy days, if you lose it’s no big deal, you just put it down to development,” Stokes told the Irish Herald .
“I knew that playing fake football in England wasn’t benefiting me in any way. You can score four goals in a game and it means nothing, the lads who are in the first team ahead of you have 200 or 300 games under their belts so they will get picked, managers over there are under such pressure to get results.”
Stokes, who now plys his trade back home in the League of Ireland Premier Division with Bohemians, had his contract terminated by mutual consent last month.
The player made only one first team appearance against Newport County in the League Cup earlier this season and felt he had no choice but to move on from a club where the chopping and changing of managers hindered his development.
“I was doing well over there, scoring goals every week, but it was unfortunate that at Leeds there was a constant change of manager, constant rotation of players and that didn’t benefit me,” Stokes added to the Irish Herald.
“I decided to get out of Leeds and come home as I wanted to play football, play men’s football. I had been playing U23 football in England since I was 16 and it wasn’t doing me any good. When you are 17 or 18 and you are in the U23s at your club, it’s great but then you hit a wall. You get a taste of first-team football and you want that every week.”
Some will read Stokes’ criticism and dismiss it as someone who failed to make the grade at Leeds.
They will point out that others, such as Lewis Cook, Charlie Taylor, Sam Byram and Ronaldo Vieira, have graduated from the club’s academy in recent years and established themselves as important players for the senior side before many secured multi-million pound transfers to the Premier League.
Yet, Stokes’ fine words are a warning to all who feel the academy and Under-23s systems are the answers to the football ills in this country.
For all the Cooks and Taylors who make it, what about those who, due to misfortune or the vagaries of the system, get lost and lose enthusiasm for the sport they once loved.
Andrea Radrizzani has sanctioned a massive overhaul of Leeds’ youth team squad since taking sole control, but it all feels so disconnected and devoid of logic.
The big boss should take heed of Stokes’ parting shot.
In other Leeds United news, the club are about to begin confirmed talks to sign up a 32-year-old whose game is dusted by genius.
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