Former Leeds United midfielder Alex Mowatt has conceded that his departure from Elland Road left him shocked as everything was arranged very quickly.

The midfielder left Leeds to join Barnsley in January 2017 in a deal worth £600,000 after he was not playing regularly under Garry Monk at Elland Road.  

 



Mowatt conceded that he was desperate to play football and was considering his options as Monk only wanted him to play in the number 10 role, while he preferred playing in the middle of the park.

He also admitted that he was unlikely to get into the team as Pablo Hernandez was ahead of him, however the transfer still left him in shock when it happened.
 


The midfielder revealed that the whole deal was arranged in a few days’ time and Monk was not pleased with the speedy transfer as he had wanted to keep him at Elland Road.
 



“I’d stopped playing regularly under Garry Monk and I just wanted to play football”, Mowatt told The Athletic.

“It didn’t look like that was going to be for Leeds, so I moved on.
 

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“No 10 was the only position where Garry really saw me playing unless I was out wide, and Pablo came in. I was on the bench.

“You can’t argue with Pablo playing at 10, but Garry never saw me as a centre mid and never wanted to play me there.

"It’s where I want to play. I’ve always said that.

“But I wasn’t expecting to leave and it happened in a couple of days – four, five days tops. That was it, I was gone. It was a shock.

“At the time Garry said he didn’t want me to go and he wasn’t happy about it but it was done so quick.”

A product of the Leeds academy, he won Player of the Year awards on three occasions at Leeds (2013/14 Young Player of the Year, 2014/15 Players’ Player of the Year, 2014/15 Player of the Year).