I think had he stayed he would have eventually played. Think back to that season – Wilder had to ditch the initial Sharp-Clarke pairing (Clarke wasn’t quite right till he returned after a longer spell out), Lavery wasn’t fit for most of those initial months (and might not have even been brought in had we opted to keep DCL), McNulty had been loaned out, and so Sharp & Done were the only two fit strikers for a lot of those early months. I think it’s likely DCL would have seen plenty of time in the team that season.
But everything’s turned out well enough for all parties, so it’s by no means a deal I look back on and think too much about what might have been. Keeping him would have meant some other investment in the team wouldn’t have happened, or another player would have had to be sold, so it’s not as though we could have kept him without any negative consequence.