Mateo Joseph has done enough to well and truly get his foot in the Leeds United first-team door, Jesse Marsch has revealed. The 19-year-old has made himself hard to ignore this season with his performances in the Whites’ Under-21s side, scoring 12 goals in 11 appearances in all competitions, with three hat-tricks coming along the way.
That form saw him rewarded with a senior debut in November, starting and impressing at Molineux in United’s Carabao Cup tie with Wolves and a Premier League bow followed a few days later at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The league outing came as an 89 th minute substitute, but it was enough to give him a flavour of the top flight heading into the World Cup break and it seems to have spurred him on even more.
Joseph has been training under Marsch’s nose as a first-team squad member on a full-time basis since then, travelling with the team to Spain for a warm-weather training camp and featuring in all three mid-season friendlies as Leeds ready themselves for a return to competitive action. His efforts have not gone unnoticed, either, with the head coach suggesting Joseph has managed to establish himself in the first-team reckoning.
