What's up with Brenden Aaronson?

The Inside Elland Road podcast discusses USMNT international and Leeds United midfielder Brenden Aaronson's recent dip in form

Transcript

00:00The only thing that I do have a little bit of a concern about is that in the first half

00:12of the season, Aronson's creativity was up there with the highest in the league, even

00:18if he wasn't getting the assists. The first 19 games of this season, which given that

00:23they've played 37 now is roughly the halfway point. First 19 games, he'd created just shy

00:29of three expected assists, which is pretty good. In the last 18 games, that's halved

00:37to 1.4. And even more so in the last 11 games, he's only created 0.4 in terms of expected

00:47assists. So his creativity output is on the wane ever so slightly. I don't know whether

00:52that's fatigue, whether that's confidence related, but there is a noticeable downturn

00:59in that. I agree with you. I think maybe a little bit of time out of the team would be

01:04good for him.

01:05He is a confidence player. He's said himself he can be very, very hard on himself. I think

01:10sometimes a player like that needs saving from himself and not flogging. I think Farka's

01:17taken him off quite a few times in recent games because he's not been effective. And

01:22you could see that he wasn't going to score a goal or make something happen. So they've

01:25taken him off. I also think you always, always have to recognise that Farka loves what Aronson

01:31does off the ball and how he presses and how he chases and harries. And when he does get

01:37on the ball in maybe not the final third, but in and around halfway or whatever, he

01:43can link the play quite well. He buzzes around trying to make leads flow. But yeah, I just

01:51think would it hurt him to be sitting down for QPR and let someone else? I guess the

01:58other thing is then who comes in and what do they do?