Recently suffering a head injury while at AS Roma, Leeds United loanee Diego Llorente made a comeback in the starting line up under Daniele De Rossi this weekend.
Facing Fiorentina, the defender had a mixed bag of a game, as Corriere dello Sport point out in their match rating, but still label him ‘The Best’ performer in the 2-2 draw.
Despite being at fault for Fiorentina’s second goal, the Leeds loanee made up for it late into the second half, as he rifled in a half-volley to equalise and earn his team a point.
Corriere explain the player was ‘poor as a defender’, but ‘perfect as a striker’, recalling how Andrea Belotti first shrugged him off to score his team’s second.
However, Llorente never gave up and sprung on the opportune moment to find the back of the net as he ‘invented an extraordinary goal’, acting ‘like a pure striker’, which gave his team a valuable point in their quest for Champions League football next year.
Whether they achieve it depends on the subsequent results, and that could, in turn, dictate what the Spanish centre-back’s future looks like, as AS Roma can buy him permanently from Leeds thanks to an option to buy in the loan deal negotiated in the summer.