Former Leeds United ace pays glowing tribute to Stuart Dallas after 'monumental' Whites feat

Dallas joined Leeds from Brentford as a winger back in August 2015 and made his Whites debut in the Championship clash at home to Burnley later that month.

Six and a half years later, the Northern Ireland international faced the Clarets at Elland Road once again for United's first game of 2022 but this time in a Premier League fixture in what was his 250th appearance for the Whites.

The 30-year-old has also been deployed in a whole host of different positions during his time at United, the former winger now best recognised as a centre midfielder or full-back.

His 250th outing was capped by United's second goal in a 3-1 victory against the Clarets and former Leeds midfielder turned Sky Sports presenter Prutton was in the Elland Road stands to see it all happen.

Dallas is also United's reigning player of the season who played an integral roe the previous campaign in taking United up as Championship champions.

Hailing the Ulsterman's progress with Leeds, and attempting to remember once facing him as a player, Prutton told the YEP: "I think he has typified what these recent years of Leeds have needed to be about."

"They have been about character, they have been about hard work, they have been about superseding perhaps standards that you had set for yourself and ambitions for your own career.

"I think he has been a terrific recent servant of Leeds.

"I have known of him, I think I maybe even played against him a very, very long time ago.

"But having known of him through former teammates of mine who always spoke very highly of him, there was always a good lad there who obviously wanted to apply himself as well as possible to the way that his football career went and it's a monumental achievement.

"I think he is part of the very heart of Leeds' most recent glory years with getting back to the Premier League he has approached each and every game wherever he has been told to play the same way and played out of his skin.

"If you looked at this season and the standards that he has set himself, that he is working his socks off to try and maintain that I think is testament to how far he has come as a player and how high the benchmark is that the fans set for him as well.

"But for a player to be able to operate in a number of positions highly and in the Premier League, we are not talking about a utility player, we are talking about a player that can be a specialist in several places because of his energy levels, because if his fitness, because of his ability on the ball and above all because of his attitude and his attitude towards his games.

"I think he is a player and a man that is to be celebrated and an example of what is the very, very best about Leeds United at this moment in time."

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/yorkshire-evening-post-launch-leeds-united-only-digital-subscription-ahead-premier-league-campaign-2967964

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Thank you Laura Collins