The "January" Transfer Window 20/21 season

[Fridge]

The club find themselves in a bit of a predicament and, in many ways, can do no right:

1) Sign proven players from top European leagues/prem and some fans would complain that we’re overspending on transfer fees and disrupting the dressing room with disproportionate wages.

2) Sign the best of the Championship and some would complain that we have become involved in bidding wars and overpaid for players unproven at the top level

3) Sign young foreign players from South America and lower European leagues and some would complain that we are spending our money on unproven talent who might not be able to cut it.

No matter which category a player fits into, there is always going to be a risk associated with any signing. I think a blend of all three is what will work best.

Whoever ends up coming in, we won’t know how the squad will do until the season starts. As many of you have said, the most important thing that the club need to do is retain the manager. I trust Bielsa to choose the players that he can work with, all that Andrea/Victor need to do is find the money to make it work.

P.S. there is a fourth option - sign nobody at all and ‘do a Norwich’

[DavidH]

Wouldn't it be crazy to give a list of your targets to a journalist of whatever repute, if it warns other clubs of your targets resulting in possibly entering a bidding war over them, and if the selling club know you really want them, won't they put a few million on the asking price? We seem to be keeping our cards close to our chest, so the thought of telling Phil what we want, seems outlandish.

My guess is that Bielsa is on holiday until the playoff final, at which point we will know what our targets are.

[Fridge]

I wouldn’t underestimate how much journos like Phil know about our movements in the transfer market. Phil especially gets these things spot on almost every time.

No doubt that the club uses this to their advantage. I’m sure there will be red herrings thrown in there and the club will be keen to appear as if they are chasing a large number of players, so as to show selling clubs that they have other options should the right deal not be struck

If these select few journos didn’t have any insider information at all, they’d jump on every player that the gutter press links us to.

I also don’t someone like Phil, who has been covering Leeds for over 15 years, would have built such a good reputation if he was just another rumour-spinner.

https://youtu.be/MsnKXXEJj7Q - this video from 3:25 shows Kinnear meeting with a selection of the press, notably Phil Hay and Adam Pope to brief them before the announcement of Bielsa’s contract renewal last season. I would imagine similar briefings around transfers - the club will be keen to ensure that the right news is being broadcast to the public

[Irish Ian]

Apparently the Gelhardt kid is a done deal.
1M.
Paperwork to be sorted next week.

The new Wayne Rooney. ( Chubby cheeks and a scouser)

Lock up your grannies

[The Subhuman]

One for the future one would think. 27 games for England teams and 19 goals but he's played for England more than his club by a distance

[Aussieleeds]

Journalist:”What do you think of Striker X?”
Orta:”He's a good player”
Next Day Headline: “Leeds set to sign Striker X”

[Cjay]

A new old name to add to the list, or maybe its an old new name.

Former Real Madrid Striker Raul De Tomas being linked in the Spanish press.

Been linked with him tons of times going back to when Chris Wood left.

May be something in it or just lazy journalists.

[andrewjohnsmith]

I think all these journlists have an algorithm for transfer targets. The same algorithm that tries to tell me what to watch on Netflix, listen to on Pandora, or buy from Amazon.

[Cjay]

2 more names to add to the list.

Both Belgium based

21 year old Club Brugge winger Emmanuel Dennis.

Scored a few vs Real Madrid last season
Milad Mohammadi, 26 year old Iranian left back/ winger, plays for Genk, same club as Jonathan David.

[billysboots]

A bit off topic. Ryan Edmonson has his debut for Aberdeen and impressed people with his playing and physicality.
It was against Rangers, he put one of their defenders on the ground.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

Post legal battle with Leipzig.
Radz "we've smashed our transfer record to bring you an amazing signing = Big Kev".

"At the moment he's on the treatment table after a panic attack brought on by MB's training regimen"

Don't worry we'll make sure he's got good company with Forshaw and sick note Delph"

It's beyond me how Orta has been able to keep his job after this fiasco.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

A bit off topic. Ryan Edmonson has his debut for Aberdeen and impressed people with his playing and physicality.
It was against Rangers, he put one of their defenders on the ground.

I really wish we had given him a chance before sending him out on loan - he could have been a real revelation, maybe even another Norman Whiteside, though his wages would be a bit more than the 250 quid a week Whiteside was on after becoming a star in the World Cup....

[The Subhuman]

Because he's good at it?

[White Riot]

It's beyond me how Orta has been able to keep his job after this fiasco.

Not just that mate. I mean kudos for the passion and vamos Leeds cavajo and all that, but he's now gonna need to prove himself at the top level at a very crucial time for us.

He's brought us JKA, Bamford, Poveda, Casilla, Douglas, Roberts, Forshaw, Costa, Baker, Blackman, Brown, Klich, Said, Harrison, etc.

More misses than hits for me and I would say that Bielsa has definitely saved his bacon with the individual and collective performance improvements he's achieved with an average bunch of players.

I'm hoping Orta can do the business in the coming weeks, otherwise it's all down to MB and the players.

[The Subhuman]

JKA would have been on Bielsa's list
Bamford did a job for 2 seasons
Poveda looks class
Douglas I like a lot
Roberts is a good striker, yet to play there much
Costa everyone wanted including MB
Baker wasa miss
Blackman was our #2 and got injured quickly. Unless Orta injured him that's not a miss
Klich - Stunningly good
Harrison - best left winger in the division

and you forgot Bielsa himself - what a signing that was

I also think Struijk was one of his, McKinstry who could break into the starting line up this season as Bielsa rates him very highly

Then we have a very good academy non existent before Rads/Orta arrived.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

JKA would have been on Bielsa's list
Bamford did a job for 2 seasons
Poveda looks class
Douglas I like a lot
Roberts is a good striker, yet to play there much
Costa everyone wanted including MB
Baker wasa miss
Blackman was our #2 and got injured quickly. Unless Orta injured him that's not a miss
Klich - Stunningly good
Harrison - best left winger in the division

and you forgot Bielsa himself - what a signing that was

I also think Struijk was one of his, McKinstry who could break into the starting line up this season as Bielsa rates him very highly

Then we have a very good academy non existent before Rads/Orta arrived.

Bamford - maybe, but for the money could we have got a more prolific goalscorer ? Pukki didn't cost Norwich a penny. Next season in the PL will be make or break for him. So far he has scored 1 goal in 27 PL appearances....His stock ( and market value ) may decline markedly if he is a flop in the PL again.
Poveda - let's see what he can do in the PL. At the moment he's pretty much untested in the Championship despite definite early promise. That's not his fault - just that he has been used sparingly so far.
Douglas - see the marks on here under his player profile - all 4s or 5s out of 10. He's been a definite miss, and injured most of the time anyway.
Roberts - I think Roberts has shown promise. Let's see what he can do in the PL. Was he worth the money we paid ? Surely the jury's still out. Next season will be make or break for him most likely.
Costa - it made complete sense to bring him in on loan, but did we really need to commit to paying 16m for him on promotion as part of the deal ? The same can be said about JKA - though the fee agreed in that case was 18m. I can't understand why Orta commits to a loan/purchase before players like this have had significant game time under Bielsa and his system. JKA doesn't seem to fit in with Bielsa's ethos, never mind his system. I suspect that Costa would be more effective with a club which has a more counter attacking style of play, as ideally he needs to be able to use his pace to run into space. His finishing seems pretty poor to me.
Klich - Orta's best permanent signing.
Harrison - our front 3 are all fairly poor finishers, and to date this includes Harrison. He missed lots of sitters last season. Our full backs are generally better finishers than our wingers. He has a lot of skill, there is no doubt about that, but he still needs a consistent final product. As with Roberts and Bamford, next season will be make or break for him in the PL.

Then you have Casilla - he arguably cost us promotion last season, and has made numerous errors. He has cost a fortune in wages, including during the period of his suspension. A definite miss.

In addition, Felix Wiedwald was a permanent signing. Then you have Cibicki, Sacko ( signed permanently by Orta ) Grot, de Bock, Lonergan, Anita, Ekuban, Ideguchi and the Izzy Brown loan.

[The Subhuman]

If we'd committed to paying 15 M for white would that have been a good move? If so why not the same for Costa? Hindsight is a wonderful thing I guess. When Rads/Orta took over there was a lot of inexperience on Rad's part and a massive rush to put out a team as the previous chairman didn't leave us with much. Mistakes were made season 1, I agree we made some silly signing then but the incredible rise of LUFC over those three seasons is nothing short of remarkable and Bielsa, Orta, Rads and all the players and coaching staff deserve the same credit.

2.5 million for Roberts using CJays 20M is the new 5M means he was cheap as chips even if we end up paying the full 4 Mill for whatever add ons there were.

Casilla is a good keeper, some would argue that it was Cooper that cost us promotion last season in the end, but all keepers make errors and they live and die by them whereas strikers could make ten a game but are forgiven if they tap one in from a yard..I'm not sure Orta can be blamed for his "supposed faux pas..Nor can he be blamed for injuries to players, they're part of the game.

Lets not forget we bought players to get us up, not to win us the premiership and for the most part they did that in spades. We have some very high ceiling exciting talents coming through.

I really don't understand the anti VO sentiment..There's no case to answer imo.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

If we'd committed to paying 15 M for white would that have been a good move? If so why not the same for Costa? Hindsight is a wonderful thing I guess. When Rads/Orta took over there was a lot of inexperience on Rad's part and a massive rush to put out a team as the previous chairman didn't leave us with much. Mistakes were made season 1, I agree we made some silly signing then but the incredible rise of LUFC over those three seasons is nothing short of remarkable and Bielsa, Orta, Rads and all the players and coaching staff deserve the same credit.

2.5 million for Roberts using CJays 20M is the new 5M means he was cheap as chips even if we end up paying the full 4 Mill for whatever add ons there were.

Casilla is a good keeper, some would argue that it was Cooper that cost us promotion last season in the end, but all keepers make errors and they live and die by them whereas strikers could make ten a game but are forgiven if they tap one in from a yard..I'm not sure Orta can be blamed for his "supposed faux pas..Nor can he be blamed for injuries to players, they're part of the game.

Lets not forget we bought players to get us up, not to win us the premiership and for the most part they did that in spades. We have some very high ceiling exciting talents coming through.

I really don't understand the anti VO sentiment..There's no case to answer imo.

We might have had an offer accepted by Brighton at 7 or 8 million for White, in which case it might have been considered to be worth a punt at the time. I doubt if anyone valued White at 15 million before the start of the season. At the time there was concern that we were staking possible promotion on a young inexperienced defender who was unproven at championship level.

I tend to think that Bielsa has made the absolute most of a fairly weak hand that he was dealt by Orta's signings. Phillips, Ayling, Cooper, Dallas and Hernandez have performed consistently well all season, and they were all at the club before Orta arrived. Casilla, Bamford, Costa and Harrison have all come under scrutiny/flak at times for their performances during the season, and they are all Orta signings. The two Orta signings which have performed well all season are White and Klich. Unfortunately we don't own White, so we will have to start again in terms of a central defender to replace him.

About 8m has been spent on the Nketiah and JKA loans, and the question has to be asked whether this was money well spent. If 18m has to be eventually paid out for JKA then the budget allocated to help become reasonably competitive in the PL will have been compromised.

Personally speaking I don't think we can continue with this pattern of hit and miss signings when it comes to bringing in the players that we require for next season. In fairness all credit to Orta for his role in helping to bring Bielsa to the club, but his role right now is to bring in the right players for the PL, and to avoid any disasters like the JKA fiasco.

[Byebyegeegee]

I think that certainly Radrizani deserves some credit for turning things around, let’s face it he could not possibly have been as bad as recent previous owners, but he was very green and naive when he 1st came in, appointing a string of astonishingly poor managers, but got right eventually, with the help of Orta I assume, by appointing Bielsa.

There is no doubt about Orta’s commitment to Leeds United and the binoculars thing at Derby was absolutely hilarious, but as far as I can see, the only plus points on his cv are Klich and Bielsa. All the others have either yet to be proven or have been complete disasters, wasting the club millions, culminating in the, possibly eyewateringly(is that even a word?) expensive JKA fiasco.

There is no doubt in my mind that 99% of the credit for the last two years should go to Marcelo Bielsa.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

I think that certainly Radrizani deserves some credit for turning things around, let’s face it he could not possibly have been as bad as recent previous owners, but he was very green and naive when he 1st came in, appointing a string of astonishingly poor managers, but got right eventually, with the help of Orta I assume, by appointing Bielsa.

There is no doubt about Orta’s commitment to Leeds United and the binoculars thing at Derby was absolutely hilarious, but as far as I can see, the only plus points on his cv are Klich and Bielsa. All the others have either yet to be proven or have been complete disasters, wasting the club millions, culminating in the, possibly eyewateringly(is that even a word?) expensive JKA fiasco.

There is no doubt in my mind that 99% of the credit for the last two years should go to Marcelo Bielsa.

I agree with this. I believe that Bielsa has suceeded despite Orta's signings - not because of them.

The JKA fiasco may be very expensive indeed when you take into account the 4m wasted on the loan ( including paying his massive wages whilst injured ) legal fees for what may turn out to be a long drawn-out court case, being forced to pay 18m for him, and then stumping out his very steep wages for a number of months until presumably he can be got rid of. Then you have a possible huge loss if we accept a low offer in order to be rid of him.