Peter Lorimer: What Leeds will miss about Sam Byram

Without getting overly involved, in my opinion, his mind does not seem to have been on the job this season at all.

It leaves the club in an awkward position of having a young lad playing here who has his mind elsewhere.

One of the things now in football is that sometimes players can get far too much, too early, without having totally earned it.

I think the minute when most of the young lads show anything these days, clubs put them on contracts which are far and away above what they have earned.

As far as I know, the contract that Sam previously had signed here wasn’t with Massimo Cellino, but with David Haigh.

When you are a footballer, your agent wants the best he can get for you.

But, at the end of the day, some reality has to come into it and it is about giving value for money.

I don’t think Sam can say for one minute that he has played his best football this season.

Obviously, situations can affect players and it’s only natural.

Personally, I do blame agents a lot and reality needs to come in and, in all honesty, I think Sam should be proving his value for the money and that his heart is in the club.

I think Sam is a smashing young lad and I like him. But when I speak to the fans, they all think he doesn’t want to be here. It’s a very awkward situation for the football club.

It is up to Sam to prove his worth. While last year, while he wasn’t the player of the year or anything, I thought Sam – of all the kids here – was the best of them. That has not been the case this season, when he has struggled.

Whether it is confidence or the matter of what is going to happen to him is on his mind, I don’t honestly know.

But when you are a young footballer, all you should be concentrating on is playing your best football every week and giving 100 per cent. Other things will happen for you.

I don’t know what Sam earns. But I don’t think for one minute he is not earning a very good wage for a boy who has done what he’s done and has only come so far. You have to earn the contract you want and work hard to get it.

What will be, will be now. No-one really wants Sam to go. But if Sam wants to go, we will have to put up with that.

Onto last weekend’s game at MK Dons and, as I said before last week, I wouldn’t have been surprised if we went there and won. And we did.

Although we had the two very disappointing home games against Brentford and Ipswich Town, the way we set up at the minute is more suited to playing away from home.

That’s two away wins on the trot now and while some people will say we were a bit lucky at MK Dons, when you play the system we do, you have to play on the break and that’s basically what we did.

I was particularly pleased for our goalkeeper Marco Silvestri, who did well after a very disappointing game in the previous match against Ipswich at Elland Road.

After that, it could have gone one way or the another for him here at Leeds.

But he came out and showed a lot of bottle on Saturday and did a good job.

Now it’s onto Middlesbrough on Sunday and with what happened there last year, I felt a bit sorry for them in that our win there probably cost them the league.

I think they had 40 shots and we must have had one and we won 1-0!

Marco, on the day, was absolutely outstanding and it was difficult after the game speaking to their chairman Steve Gibson and trying to console him. In the end, it was a major blow to Middlesbrough’s promotion hopes.

That was probably the game where they lost it and I am sure they will be wanting to get revenge on us. It could certainly be a lively game.

Boro are my tip for automatic promotion. Their form is good again this season and they have strengthened and improved and I am sure that they will be up there at the end of the year.