Leeds United podcaster Joe Wainman has given his thoughts on recent comments made by Victor Orta about the club’s transfer policy.
The Leeds United Sporting Director has recently made some rather interesting comments about how the club will operate moving forward following the departure of Marcelo Bielsa and the impact that he left on the club.
Speaking at the recent Training Ground Guru’s scouting and recruitment webinar (quoted by The Independent), Orta stated that despite leaving the club back in February, the Argentinian’s policy of bringing through young players will still play a part in how the club move forward in the transfer window:
“I believe in a project that is one of Marcelo Bielsa’s legacies. If you believe in youth development you need to prove it. Our idea is 18 professionals and the other four players all with the under-23s because we believe in youth development and want to give responsibility to the academy.
“Leeds United is not a team that can be in the market for £150m each time. We can buy one or two [players with established] careers but then we need to build [players’] careers”.
Speaking on the most recent episode on his YouTube channel (3:19), Wainman responded to the comments and claimed that whilst he understood where Orta was coming from with his remarks, it didn’t really stack up when you look at some of their transfer business, most notably the
“He’s put a lot of emphasis on the young players like your [Lewis] Bates’, like your [Kristoffer] Klaesson’s, Joe Gelhardt etc.
Now, you’re not always going to be as lucky as Leeds United have found themselves under this regime. Because, yes Joe Gelhardt massive plus, I mean, Victor Orta was on record of saying ‘Would I rather spend £1m on Joe Gelhardt, or £500m on a 31-year-old?’ I know, that’s hypotheticals, he just threw it out there. Of course, I’d rather go for Joe Gelhardt’.
“My response to that would be ‘okay yeah, so why did you spend our record highest fee on Rodrigo Moreno?’ Like, come on now? Like he can’t, that doesn’t really swing with me.”
TIF Thoughts on Joe Wainman’s comments about Victor Orta and Leeds United…
Were these comments by Orta ill-advised?
Yes
No
Wainman does have a point here, because it does seem odd for Leeds United to essentially claim poverty only to have to fork out their two highest transfer fees in the space of two summers in the form of the aforementioned Rodrigo as well as Dan James, and this could end up having a massive impact on how clubs deal with them in the summer.
If clubs know that they apparently don’t have the money in the words of Orta, then clubs will know that they can bump up the price for players Leeds United want knowing that they can’t chase after them, meanwhile they can lowball them in any offers for players from Leeds that they might want, knowing that they aren’t in a position to say now because they’ll need the money.
Just how big an impact it will eventually have on their transfer business we’ll just have to wait and see, but on the surface it doesn’t come across as the wisest of moves from Orta.
In other news: TalkSPORT man has just dropped big Leeds claim amid rumours