Leeds United Star ‘Not 100 Per Cent Comfortable’ In Role Insists Whites Legend
Michael Regan/Getty Images
Leeds United legend Jon Newsome has stressed that Whites forward Noah Okafor lacks belief when he plays up front, suggesting that playing out wide is his ‘bread and butter’.
The Elland Road outfit paid around £18m in the summer transfer window to AC Milan and the forward made the Whites’ ‘very happy’ with their decision to buy him.
Okafor signed a four-year deal with the Premier League new boys and one former Leeds star dubbed him a ‘horrible’ player for opposition players to play against.
The Swiss winger has started ten league games for the Whites, starting the last two games up front alongside an in-form Dominic Calvert-Lewin, in the absence of Lukas Nmecha.
Even though he has not scored since early October after his goal against Tottenham Hotspur, his performances have received plaudits from time to time.
Newsome has insisted that he does not mind Okafor playing alongside Calvert-Lewin in the absence of Nmecha, who Daniel Farke hopes to have available for the Crystal Palace game on Saturday.
The former Whites star, though, is clear that the way Okafor plays up front shows that he is not very comfortable playing up top.
“No, no, not at all – I just think you can tell that it is not his preferred position, can’t you?”, Newsome said on BBC Radio Leeds (23:36) when he was asked if he would mind seeing Okafor start against Crystal Palace at the weekend.
“When Daniel Farke made the substitutions, and he put Okafor out on that left-hand side, all of a sudden, he sort of opened his legs two or three times and took that right-back on.
“And you could see that [playing as a winger] is his bread and butter, that’s what makes him tick.
“It is difficult when you are playing out of position, although he played up top before, you could just tell him by his body language that he is not 100 per cent comfortable the way he is, when he plays out wide.”
Newsome insisted that the Swiss star looks most confident playing on the wing, stressing he lacks belief playing as a striker.
“When you stick that ball out to him on the left-hand side, and he goes at people it on his left foot and has a strike at goal, that is what he is really good at.
“But when balls are dropping to him in the penalty area out of the sky, it is maybe not his forte.
“He has not got that belief when he is out wide.”
Okafor, though, will look to get his goal tally up, as he still has only two goals in 13 Premier League games.
He will need to show his lethal nature in front of the goal if he is to play in the World Cup next summer and his skills have been deemed useful by Switzerland’s national team director.
Now it remains to be seen if Nmecha will be fit to start alongside Calvert-Lewin at the weekend, or if Okafor will start three games in a row as a striker.
The post Leeds United Star ‘Not 100 Per Cent Comfortable’ In Role Insists Whites Legend appeared first on Inside Futbol | Latest Football News, Transfer Rumours & Articles.