Leeds United signed Lewis Bate for £1.5 million in the summer, as the teenager left Chelsea seeking first-team football.
The midfielder has has to bide his time but in the last two weeks he had his big opportunity. First, he started in the FA Cup, then on Sunday he came on for the injured Adam Forshaw after 22 minutes to make his Premier League debut.
The game was played at a significantly higher tempo than the FA Cup tie, where he had impressed in possession but many felt that the teenager gave a good account of himself in Leeds' 3-2 victory.
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However, he was substituted in the second half, having played just over 45 minutes. This seemed to be a decision made because Marcelo Bielsa wanted to bring on Rodrigo to play 30 minutes but he also didn't want to take of Mateusz Klich.
Unfortunately for Bate, this meant he suffered the ignominy of being substituted off, having been a substitute himself, all the while on his Premier League debut.
Being only 19-years-old, it should be acknowledged that this experience could have a negative effect on Bate just as he's starting out in his senior career. However, whilst Bate lost the ball on a couple of occasions shortly before the substitution, he wasn't playing poorly and did well on hid debut.
As Ian Wright said on Match of the Day 2:
"[Bate] got brought off again and he looked disappointed but he was brilliant. He did fantastic in the time he was on, Lewis Bate today."
One thing that Bate's senior team-mates will surely be letting him know is that he's not the first player to suffer an early substitution under Bielsa's management and he won't be the last.
Crysencio Summerville had the same experience against Arsenal in recent times. However, going back to the first year of Bielsa's tenure at Elland Road, Kalvin Phillips was substituted in the first half twice in the first ten games of the season. In his case, he'd been struggling badly in those games and was not a teenager on his debut.
Bielsa still started him in the next games and Phillips kept working. He has since gone on to be one of the most important players in Leeds' Bielsa era and has established himself as a star for England, even winning the national team's player of the year recently.
Another player in the eleven on Sunday has also gone through the experience of being substituted in the first-half, as Pascal Struijk was brought off early on against Aston Villa last season after he'd struggled to contain Villa's runners through midfield and earned himself a yellow card for a foul on Jack Grealish as he attempted to recover. The Whites subsequently won the game 3-0 thanks to a Patrick Bamford hat-trick.
It may well be the case that Bate is totally focused on the positive of making his Premier League debut but if he is feeling downbeat about being brought off, he should be encouraged by looking at the experiences of those two players.
If Bate continues to work in the way that he has to gain his opportunity and follow the examples of Phillips and Struijk in learning from the difficult experiences, his talent will shine through and there will only be more opportunities.
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