OPINION
Victor Orta wasn’t well liked last season. He was the fall guy as lots of his transfers failed to work out.
However, he was doing deals with a limited budget and without a good manager to advise him.
Things are completely different now. Leeds have only announced one transfer so far this January but it’s a big one. And former Real Madrid goalkeeper Kiko Casilla said that Orta was a big part of the reason he decided to join the Bielsa revolution at Elland Road.
In the Yorkshire Evening Post, he said: “Victor Orta came to Madrid expressly to see me and to explain the project – what Bielsa wanted from me, what Leeds are, and between one thing and another everything made me think it over. Here I am.”
Casilla has three Champions League winning medals and has to go down as a transfer masterstroke.
It also looks like Leeds are going to beat Brighton to the punch for attacking midfielder Mateusz Bogusz from Ruch Chorzow, and they want to bring in Swansea winger Daniel James. That would represent very good, if frugal, business.
Some of Orta’s signing didn’t work out. Jay-Roy Grot is one, Pawel Cibicki and Yosuke Ideguchi are two others.
But the Leeds squad that are sitting on top of the league isn’t too far removed from the one that failed under Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbottom.
It seems all Orta needed was a good manager above him to run the rule over the transfers.
Bielsa has said that he trusts Victor Orta when it comes to transfers and you can’t get much higher praise than that.
Bielsa will get all the credit if Leeds do get promoted and will rightly go down as a Leeds legend. We think that Orta shouldn’t be too far behind him.