Leeds United fans watching Champions League action last night will have been shocked to see the Juventus man putting Manchester City to the sword was none other than Weston McKennie.
Back when Leeds were relegated from the Premier League, there were very few players coming away from that season with any sort of credit in the bank.
January’s transfers did nothing to arrest that slide into the bottom three either, including the midfield addition of Weston McKennie on loan from Juventus, having a horrid half-season in West Yorkshire before being booed off in his final appearance at home to Tottenham.
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Weston McKennie scores for Juventus in win v Manchester City
Life has flipped around in an overwhelmingly positive way for the USMNT midfielder since returning to Juventus from Leeds, grafting hard and earning his way back into a starting spot.
His latest outing came in the Champions League on Wednesday night, at home to struggling Manchester City.
After Dusan Vlahovic opened the scoring, McKennie made it 2-0 to the hosts with a fine finish from around 10 yards out:
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Weston McKennie addresses woeful Leeds spell and blames the weather
McKennie spoke post-match on CBS Sports Golazo alongside Leeds-born Micah Richards and Jamie Carragher, and was asked about what went wrong during his time at Leeds.
Obviously, his performances right now are in stark contrast to what everyone witnessed from him in LS11, to which he largely blames the weather and location for his lack of inspiration at Elland Road:
“Okay I will say this, Leeds as a club, the people within the club I liked. The city itself and the surroundings was a little bit hard. It was always grey, I had a sunlight window in my house and there was never any sun coming through.
“No Sunday roast, no nothing. I was alone. My area was like no area, nothing around. I went up to see Harry Potter world which was like an hour away. That’s it, that’s all I did, and golf.”
Poor Weather and no hobbies doesn’t tie in with what we all saw from McKennie at Leeds
Fair enough, moving to a new country in the midst of toxic atmospheres and managers changing constantly is not the ideal environment for a player to thrive in.
However, there is a difference between being stuck in such a rut because of external factors like that, and being too lazy to work his way out of it.
Raphinha is from Brazil, he didn’t let the dodgy weather get in the way of his hard work each week and quality performances.
Leeds fans could have given McKennie more slack for his performances if he’d have actually put the effort in for most games, but that wasn’t the case.
Instead, we trudged to relegation because he – and many others, it has to be said – couldn’t put the graft in to get Leeds out of the mess they were in.
That being said, it is good to see that he’s worked past whatever struggles he was going through during his time at Leeds, because there’s evidently a player there.