Season Grade: Andy Lonergan

Expectations

Andy Lonergan came to Leeds United after the club released Rob Green, so that the former England international could pursue a spot on the bench for Premier League Huddersfield Town.

Lonergan came to Leeds for the express purpose of being the backup keeper, with seemingly no illusions on being the starting keeper. He would get a few cup matches, and perhaps a spot start here and there to give the new starter, Felix Wiedwald, some relief.

Performance

However, the shaky performances of Wiedwald resulted in Lonergan getting a few starts in the Championship as well as in cup matches. He played well in a few League Cup matches, with a pretty good performance in the win over Burnley.

And while Lonergan did decent for awhile, he definitely wasn’t playing as an above average keeper while Felix Wiedwald was benched. The defence was leaky while Lonergan was playing, but he’s wasn’t necessarily the reason why the team lost. Of course, that all changed after the match at Brentford.

Andy Lonergan had one of the worst goalkeeping performances for Leeds in recent memory with two absolute goalkeeping howlers. And while any mistake by the goalkeeper tends to be magnified because of the nature of the position, there was no other way to describe the match other than the loss was completely and totally caused by the complete awfulness of Lonergan’s play in between the sticks.

Thomas Christiansen, as he did with Wiedwald, allowed Lonergan a match or two after a dire goalkeeping performance to sort himself out before benching him, meaning that Wiedwald was recalled to be the starting goalkeeper a few weeks later.

Sunderland had made an offer to take Lonergan to the Stadium of Light during the January transfer window and make him the starter as Chris Coleman looked to pull off a miracle and keep the Black Cats up, but the deal broke down at the last possible minute and Lonergan stayed at Elland Road.

While Lonergan was hurt, however, Bailey Peacock-Farrell got the chance to start and the young Northern Ireland keeper took his chance and never looked back, leaving both Lonergan and Wiedwald on the bench.

Overall Grade: C

Besides the dreadful performance against Brentford, Lonergan was a pretty mediocre goalkeeper, which is pretty much what was expected of him going into the season. He wasn’t supposed to be a starting goalkeeper in his second stint at the club, and he proved why Wolverhampton were more than willing to let him go. With the emergence of Peacock-Farrell, it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to keeper Lonergan around, but it still would not be surprising to see him depart during the summer transfer window.