Wilfried Gnonto has decided that he doesn’t want to play for Leeds anymore.
The Italian refused to travel to Birmingham City last week, and he’s now training on his own as he tries to engineer a move away from Elland Road.
One man who knows Gnonto rather well is his former manager Sam Allardyce.
Allardyce worked with Gnonto at Leeds last season, and he refuses to believe that the player has been behind this decision.
Indeed, speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Football Podcast, Allardyce stated that he thinks Gnonto’s agent is driving this dispute, and the former Leeds boss stated that he thinks Gnonto could ruin his career with this stunt.
Big mistake
Allardyce gave his verdict on the Gnonto situation.
“I think that is guided by his agent. I think his agent has told him to do that. I can’t see it from the short time that I was there that he would say ‘I’m not going to play’. I think his agent has said that his best chance of getting away is by not turning up. His agent has to be 100% certain he’s got a club for him to go to, because if he’s taking the chance of doing that without a club to go to it could ruin his career, not totally, but it would set him back so far that it would be very difficult,” Allardyce said.
Tread carefully
Gnonto is taking a massive risk here.
On one hand, we can understand why he wants to leave Leeds to return to playing top-flight football as soon as possible, but, in the same breath, going on strike could tarnish his reputation forever.
Refusing to play is one of the most unprofessional things a footballer can do, and if Gnonto gets a reputation for being unprofessional, these top clubs won’t want to touch him with a barge pole.
This is a risky move from Gnonto, and as Allardyce says, it could ultimately have a massive negative impact on his career.
