Leeds United and Joe Gelhardt transfer state of play revealed as Celtic and Rangers links surface

The 21-year-old has found game time hard to come by this season, despite the club's drop into the Championship, with just five minutes of league action coming his way since mid-September. Gelhardt, who has had a few niggles and knocks to contend with, has struggled to unseat the in-form Georginio Rutter, Joel Piroe or Patrick Bamford, who recently returned to the starting XI and has scored three goals in three games.

But any temptation to farm the youngster out to allow him to continue his development elsewhere for the second half of the season is tempered by Leeds' own squad needs. Farke sent Djed Spence back to Tottenham Hotspur and allowed Luke Ayling to move to Middlesbrough on loan but the Whites are yet to strengthen themselves. And the squad is not so big that Farke would be willing to let Gelhardt go too.

Speaking ahead of last weekend's win over Cardiff City he said: "Joffy [Gelhardt] is a proper part of our group and has played several games and minutes, and at the moment the group is definitely not too big and at the moment I am not tempted to give any more players away. Now we want to keep more or less the group and strengthen the squad, we are not tempted to give players away, also not in offensive positions. Perhaps it is different situation at the end of January but right now we’re happy Joffy has returned back to team training and is also available for the game at the weekend."

Gelhardt's camp are under the impression that there is currently 'no chance' the forward moves out on loan during the January transfer window and in any case, a temporary stint with either Rangers or Celtic is impossible because it would count as an international loan and Leeds cannot sanction any more of those.

The Cardiff visit saw Gelhardt return to the matchday squad, though he did not feature in a game that saw goals for his positional rivals Bamford and Rutter. Farke did see fit to put Piroe on in stoppage time, replacing Bamford.