Simon Jordan believes Andrea Radrizzani and Victor Orta are to blame for Leeds United‘s near-relegation to the Championship from the Premier League.
It took the Whites until the final game of the campaign to secure their status as a top-tier outfit, as they won 2-1 at Brentford while Burnley were defeated at home by the same scoreline against Newcastle. Their final position of 17th was a far cry from their top-half finish the season prior.
Speaking on TalkSport, Jordan believes Radrizzani and Orta are to blame for the huge drop-off in form. He said: “I admire the club. But they’ve done it wrong this season. The owner’s done it wrong, the director of football’s done it wrong, the purchasing policy’s been wrong. They haven’t compensated for the issues that they’ve had in terms of injuries.
“Every club has injuries, they all have injuries. They lost key players like [Patrick] Bamford and [Kalvin] Phillips and so on and so forth for big parts of the season.
“They’ve gotten away with it this time. And I’m pleased they’ve gotten away with it.”
TIF Thoughts on Leeds’ business
It is hard to disagree with Jordan’s analysis. Leeds had a chance to push on at the beginning of the term, but only brought in Junior Firpo from Barcelona and Daniel James on the final day of the transfer window in terms of senior players. That felt like a missed opportunity, and so it proved to be.
Will Marsch receiving backing this summer?
Yes
No
This season, they almost paid for their lack of reinforcements – they cannot afford to do the same thing this summer. Hopefully, Radrizzani and Orta will have learned their lesson and give Jesse Marsch the support he needs – and it seems that may be the case, with Brenden Aaronson believed to be on the verge of a switch to Elland Road.