A growing number of Leeds fans are suggesting that we’ve already got one Warnock too many at the club, but today’s hot transfer gossip is that we’ve approached Aston Villa about a possible loan deal for Stephen Warnock, though we face competition from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The Yorkshire Post have reported that “Sources in the West Midlands” have indicated that both Leeds and Wolves enquired about 31-year-old Warnock, yesterday. The defender spent the first half of this season on loan at Bolton Wanderers. He began his career at Liverpool and had a spell at Blackburn before moving onto the Villa.
You might be wondering if our manager is simply keeping it in the family, but is seems that Neil and Stephen are no relation to each other, so there’s no such motivation in this particular move.
No doubt there’ll be a few groans at the thought of yet another loan deal, when we thought we'd gone beyond that sort of thing when the new owenrs arrived. But I think it makes sense to bring in loan players for a time to cover for others who are injured, and the Villa left-back can replace Adam Drury while the latter is recovering from his latest setback.
On the face of it the younger Warnock can’t be that good if he can’t get into a Villa team that is sinking rapidly towards the relegation zone, and he is yet to make a first team appearance this season. But it might just be that he’s out of favour at Villa Park because Paul Lambert insists on fielding the younger players in his squad, and he might do a good job for us after all.
And while we’re at it, we may as well ask Lambert if he can lend us Darren Bent.