Leeds United: Joe Gelhardt may have Ipswich Town regret - View | OneFootball

Things could have been different for the striker had he completed one transfer last summer

Highlights

For those of a Leeds United persuasion, the 2023/24 season will have been an extremely frustrating one.

Following their relegation from the Premier League at the end of the previous campaign, the Whites had their sights firmly set on an immediate return to the top flight of English football.

But despite battling for a top two spot in the Championship throughout the season, they were ultimately forced to settle for a third-place finish on the final day.

That left them facing the lottery of the play-offs, where their push for promotion ended in agonising circumstances with a 1-0 defeat to Southampton in the play-off final.

For one Leeds United player though, last season may have been a disappointing one, for other reasons as well.

Joe Gelhardt is still yet to establish himself for Leeds United

Having made the move to Elland Road across the Pennines from Wigan Athletic back in the summer of 2020, Joe Gelhardt has so far been unable to make himself a regular feature for the Whites.

There have been flashes of the striker's quality, and he came up with some crucial contributions during the 2021/22 season that helped the West Yorkshire outfit avoid relegation from the Premier League.

However, that was not enough to earn him a more consistent spot in the side, and he was subsequently sent out on loan to Sunderland for the second-half of the 2022/23 season, where he didn't find a consistent goalscoring touch, finding the back of the net just three times in 20 league outings.

Returning to Leeds last summer in the wake of their relegation, Gelhardt may have hoped that the drop into the Championship would have given him more of a chance to play regularly for the club.

That though, would not happen during the course of last season. Instead, the 22-year-old made just 13 appearances in all competitions during that campaign, only four of which were as a starter.

As a result, there is an argument that Gelhardt may be regretting another move that he missed out on, back in the summer of 2023.

Joe Gelhardt may regret not getting the chance to join Ipswich Town

While he remained at Leeds last summer following the end of his loan spell with Sunderland, Gelhardt did have interest in a move to take him elsewhere.

It was reported late in the 2023 summer transfer window, that Ipswich Town were interested in signing the striker, after their promotion from League One to the Championship.

Ultimately though, no deal to take him from Elland Road to Portman Road would materialise. That may well now have left Gelhardt with a sense that he missed out on an opportunity, with that move not happening.

In the end, it was of course Ipswich who would beat Leeds to the second automatic promotion spot in the Championship last season, securing a long-awaited return to the Premier League.

As a result, if Gelhardt had made that move to Portman Road when the chance for the move emerged last summer, he could now have been looking ahead to another shot at showing what he can do in the top-flight.

It could also be worth noting that one of the Tractor Boys centre forward options last season, George Hirst, missed a significant portion of the campaign due to injury.

Meanwhile, others such as Ali Al-Hamadi and the on loan Kieffer Moore were not signed until January, so a move to Ipswich in the summer may have seen Gelhardt earn a chance to stake a claim a regular starting spot in Kieran McKenna's side as well.

Instead, the striker is now in a position where he is facing another season in the Championship, with a Leeds side where he is far from guaranteed game time, if he is unable to secure a move away this summer.

With all that in mind, it does seem that when he looks back on the interest in him from Ipswich this time last year, you get the feeling that Gelhardt will have a sense of wonderment, about what might have been.