The Athletic’s Leeds United correspondent Phil Hay has recently discussed the Whites’ director of football Victor Orta.
In May 2017, Andrea Radrizzani took over the Elland Road club from Massimo Cellino after he purchased 50% of the Whites with a view to acquiring the remaining 50% (per BBC).
Shortly following Radrizzani’s arrival at the club, Orta was appointed by the Yorkshire outfit as their director of football (per Yorkshire Evening Post).
Despite a poor finish in Radrizzani and Orta’s first season at the club, as Leeds ended the term in 13th position, the Whites would go on to finish third in the following campaign and earn promotion to the Premier League as champions a year later (per Transfermarkt).
During the latest episode of The Athletic’s The Phil Hay Show, in which he was joined by football agent and Leeds supporter Hayden Evans, the journalist discussed Orta and the impressive reputation that he has.
He said: “Orta interests me because he has obviously taken quite a lot of [hammering] in Leeds, or he certainly did in the first season when the transfers weren’t going well.
“Any time I speak to a club or an agent or anyone else who’s properly involved in recruitment, they always talk about how good he is, and always talk about how impressive he is and how knowledgable he is – and [Evans] said that right at the outset of this, that he’s one of the best recruiters around.”
TIF Thoughts on what Phil Hay said about Victor Orta…
As can be seen in what the journalist had to say, whoever he has spoken to about the Whites’ director of football have always seemed to be impressed by him.
Is your overall opinion of Victor Orta positive or negative?
Positive, he's done well
Negative, he does a bad job
Orta has been responsible for a fairly hefty number of signings since 2017, as stated in Leeds Live’s list of his recruits, and some of them have been impressive purchases, as claimed in the report.
While there have also been multiple players who have been a ‘miss‘ rather than a ‘hit‘, due to the impressive purchases coupled with Leeds’ return to the Premier League after a 16-year absence, it certainly seems as though Orta is doing something right.