Leeds United defender Diego Llorente has completed his loan move to Serie A giants AS Roma. It’s a deal that caught plenty by surprise going into the final few days of the window, but it’s one that seems to make sense to most.
Llorente has joined up with Jose Mourinho’s side on an initial loan deal but there is an option to make that deal permanent in the summer, with Leeds set to recoup most of the £18m they paid Real Sociedad for him two and a half years ago. The move seems to suit the defender, too, having watched a majority of Leeds’ season so far from the bench.
He’ll be looking to find traction in his career once more over the coming months and perhaps even work his way back into the Spain fold after dropping out of the national squad last year. There’ll be mixed emotions when he look back at his Leeds career, but he won’t have to go to far back to pinpoint the moment that seemed to signal the beginning of the end for him at Elland Road.
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It came at the Gtech Community Stadium in September as Leeds were thumped 5-2 in the Premier League by Brentford. Llorente wasn’t the only man at fault that day in west London, but the mistakes he made at the back directly contributed to the scoreline.
Playing alongside Robin Koch in the Leeds backline, Llorente will have been relatively pleased with the way he started the 2022-23 campaign. There was a couple of hairy moments over the course of August, but the clean sheet against Chelsea went down very well and Leeds were seventh as they travelled to play on the same pitch they secured survival on just a few months earlier.
Leeds fell behind midway through the first half through an Ivan Toney penalty and the striker lashed a free-kick into the top corner to double their advantage a few minutes later.
Llorente had a hand in Toney’s third, though, before losing Bryan Mbuemo for the Bees’ fourth and being dispossessed by Yoane Wissa for their fifth. It was a bad day at the office to say the least and it coincided with the return to fitness of Liam Cooper and that led to changes at the back when Leeds next took the field.
The Whites had to wait a month to play again due to the passing of the Queen, the state funeral and a scheduled international break, but when they took on Aston Villa at Elland Road, it was Koch and Cooper in the heart of defence. Llorente has been included in every matchday squad since, but his involvement has been minimal.
In fact, he has featured in just two Premier League games since September, starting in a much changed line-up at Leicester City before getting 18 minutes off the bench against Manchester City in December. The addition of Max Wober only seems to have pushed him further down Jesse Marsch’s pecking order, too.
As such, Llorente was facing up to the possibility of watching the remainder of the season pass him by from the dugout had his switch to Roma not come about. He’ll arrive in the Italian capital motivated by events of the last few months, though, of that there is no doubt, and under Mourinho, he’ll believe he can rediscover the form he showed during his early days at Elland Road.
Llorente spent time working under Mourinho during his time at Real Madrid. In fact, Mourinho was the man who awarded him a senior debut in La Liga, bringing him off the bench to play the final few minutes of a routine 4-2 win over Osasuna at the Bernabeu.
That was Mourinho's last match in charge of Madrid before leaving to re-join Chelsea that summer and Llorente will certainly hope to have a little longer under his stewardship this time around.
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