The Athletic’s Phil Hay has told The Square Ball that Diego Llorente is likely to join Roma permanently from Leeds United after joining Jose Mourinho’s side on loan for the second time this summer.
Llorente, 30, joined Leeds in the summer of 2020 for a fee of £18 million from Real Sociedad.
There has been a huge hype surrounding this addition.
Spanish international, player who played for Real Madrid.
La Liga regularly.
But his first season was marred by injury.
The next 18 months were not much better, he could not justify his transfer fee.
Surprisingly, he signed a new contract with Leeds on December 22 – then was loaned to Roma.
After 12 appearances for Roma in the second half of 22-23 – including the Europa League final – Roma decided to loan him out again.
This causes them to choose not to activate the permanent clause
Returning to Rome, Llorente started all three Serie A matches for his team.
They have had a terrible start to the season – with Rasmus Kristensen being ruled out.
Hay said he hopes Roma will sign a permanent contract with him.
“Roma specifically didn’t activate the option they had for him, which was supposed to be the price Leeds signed him for.
I think there’s a good chance he’ll make it permanent,” Hay said.
Llorente has no future at Leeds at this stage.
But of course he signed a new long-term contract.
This left Leeds in a position where they had to get rid of him – his salary was too high for the second tier.
Even if it were affordable, you would say that Llorente has no way back to Leeds.
Same with Leeds in the National Championship.
At this stage it is unclear how much Leeds will receive for the Spanish defender.