Player confirms he’ll head to England later this month, confident of agreeing Leeds deal
Gaetano Berardi has confirmed that he will return to England at the end of September with the hope of re-signing for Leeds United.
Berardi, 32, suffered a serious knee injury at the end of last season when playing for Leeds in their 3-1 win away at Derby County and at the time, reports suggested that he could be sidelined for up to nine months.
The former Sampdoria defender’s contract also expired when the 2019/20 campaign came to an end so he is currently recovering from his injury in Switzerland while unattached from any club.
But Leeds fans will love to know that Berardi is confident that he will be offered a new contract by the Whites once he is back in the UK in a couple of weeks’ time.
“I go walking a lot but it’s going well, even if it will be a long recovery. At the end of September I should go back to England to define everything and still stay at Leeds,” Berardi told Swiss news outlet RSI Sport.
It’s the least that Leeds can do.
Berardi made 155 appearances for Leeds and although he started just 13 Championship matches last season as the Whites won promotion, his role in the squad was vital to the club’s history return to the Premier League.
Berardi’s contract was due to expire at the end of June but he agreed a short-term extension to stay at Elland Road until the promotion bid was seen out.
If he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t have suffered his injury and would have either been offered new terms by Leeds already or been snapped up by another club.
Due to his injury, that hasn’t happened and Berardi is technically a free agent.
Although he might not play much for the Yorkshire club in the Premier League, we’d love to see him brought back to Elland Road and hope that Victor Orta and Angus Kinnear do too.
In other Leeds United news, Fulham and Leeds are interested in signing this midfielder.