Sinisterra arrives
Since his £21m arrival in early July, Luis Sinisterra’s Leeds United career has failed to ignite. The Colombian barely had four days with his team-mates before they jetted out to the other side of the world for their pre-season tour.
Sinisterra was bedded in with short cameos in Australia before that fateful hamstring injury against Crystal Palace. Bursts off the bench against Southampton and Chelsea yielded a debut and minutes, but the Elland Road faithful had been kept waiting to see what Raphinha’s replacement was all about.
They finally got to see a full debut on Wednesday night as third-tier Barnsley tried to offer some form of opposition for Sinisterra to burn away the cobwebs. It’s hard to ask for much more than the game’s best moment of quality and a turn of speed which yielded a penalty.
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Assistant head coach Rene Maric would later hit the nail on the head: “He's a great player, he's a great guy. We're very happy he was able to reward himself for his way back from the injury, the way he trains, the way he behaves.
“He's a great presence in the locker room. He's a great player, there's a lot to come from him, but he still has to continue working.
“You always see sometimes, he's not as present in the game as he could be and, again, he shows glimpses of very, very high potential and we’re happy with the performance.”
Sinisterra’s presence, or lack thereof, caught the eye. The winger did not run the game or torment the right-back as he may have wanted to.
When he was called upon, there was no doubt of his ability to do something with the ball, but aside from the goal and the penalty foul it’s hard to say he really ripped a hole in proceedings. Give him time.
This was a very promising opening gambit and bodes well for what may be coming down the track as he gets sharper and more attuned to Jesse Marsch’s tactics.
Cooper returns
Captain Liam Cooper was the big headline from the team news. The 30-year-old was considered a close call for Sunday’s Chelsea win, but missed out which meant last night looked like an ideal opportunity to ease him back in.
It was just 45 minutes for Cooper, but a very helpful return given he has not played in a match of any kind since early June with Scotland. The skipper was not stressed or stretched by the League One attack, showed a decent turn of pace where needed and even some well-judged, risky passes across his own backline.
Robin Koch and Diego Llorente are currently wearing the first-team shirts and look well-placed to retain those berths on Sunday’s evidence. Cooper should now be drafted onto Saturday’s bench in Falmer and prove to be a very dependable stand-in waiting in the wings.
Fresh claims to first-team thrones
With nine changes made, Marsch was flexing his squad’s muscles and finally setting loose a lot of pent-up energy waiting for Premier League opportunities. Clearly, results like Sunday’s are not about to precipitate a host of changes in the first-choice starting line-up.
Therefore, the back-ups need to take opportunities like Wednesday with both hands and catch the eye. In the defence, Cody Drameh and Leo Hjelde began as the full-backs.
Drameh looked the better of the two. Rasmus Kristensen, who was seen giving his understudy advice on the way to the tunnel at half-time, has looked one of the shakier regulars in the opening weeks and has posed at least a glimmer of hope for Drameh.
League One opposition can only tell Marsch so much, but Drameh was solid in defence and grew in confidence in an attacking sense as the match wore on. Hjelde, by contrast, needed multiple talks with Marsch during the first half.
The Norwegian seemed to struggle a little more with his positioning and was only further exposed when Pascal Struijk showed how it was done after the break down the left flank. Adam Forshaw and Sam Greenwood were others who did not shine.
Marc Roca and Tyler Adams have made excellent starts to the season, while neither Forshaw nor Greenwood took control of the game as they would have liked last night. Crysencio Summerville and Joe Gelhardt looked to be having more and more fun as Wednesday’s match wore on.
Their low centres of gravity, flair and dribbling ability really pulled Barnsley apart as legs tired. Neither got the goal they perhaps deserved on another evening.
Crucial Brighton prep
Arguably the most important aspect of Wednesday’s game was using it as a stepping stone towards the best possible performance on Saturday at Brighton & Hove Albion. Illan Meslier and Diego Llorente, the only survivors from Sunday’s win, came through unscathed, although the former did require lengthy treatment in the second half.
There were halves banked for Koch and Struijk, while Roca, who has played fewer minutes than most of the regulars in the opening matches, also ticked off half an hour on the field. Throwing the league’s top goalscorer into the fray with 15 minutes to go seemed a little risky, but Rodrigo got some more intensity into his legs before Saturday.
Kristensen, Brenden Aaronson, Jack Harrison and Adams were able to take the night off entirely and ensure Sunday’s victors should remain unchanged in East Sussex.
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