05 Sep 2021 12:49:32
Ok so let's summarise Ortas incomings:
Madger Gomes: awful. Has never made Championship standard and currently in L1
Pontus Jansson: great player, finally and deservedly made it to the prem where he is holding his own. This can't really go down as an Orta signing though as it was Monk who found him
Mateusz Klich: initially a complete failure but showed determination and came good working with Bielsa. If not for Bielsa I don't think he would have worked out but glad he did
Hadi Sacko - terrible. Zero end product and failed to work out. Now playing for some no hoper Turkish side
Felix Wiedwald - wretched, even more so since he was supposed to be a replacement for the excellent Rob Green. Totally error prone and complete liability.
Vurnon Anita - terrible. Shadow of the player he was at Newcastle so clearly past his best.
Caleb Ekuban - poor. Never got going or looked like a prolific goalscorer. Best forgotten
Samuel Saiz: great on his day and a match winner. However, very dodgy attitude and landed himself the trouble almost as often as he did well. Ultimately left us in the lurch of overall has to go down as a miss. His creativity has never been replaced. Maybe with Raph if he has a good second season.
Ezgjan Alioski: did brilliantly and even made the step up to Prem league. The biggest failure Orta has made was to let him leave
Ouasim Bouy - absolutely pathetic signing. Just a complete leaxh who was incredibly given a 4 year contract and didn't play a single game for us or even train with the team. Blunder of Seth Johnson proportions but thank god he was only on a youth contract and therefore relatively small wages.
Jay-Roy Grot: nowhere near good enough and never made an impression
Andy Lonergan : unsuccessful second stay at the club. Failed to make an impression on everything apart from the wage bill.
Adrian Balboa: Rocky's missus would have actually been a better signing as Adrian never showed any promise or talent. Another howler.
Paweł Cibicki: 1.5 million wasted on a player 2ho only appeared 10 times. Sold for about 300k and another big loss.
Hugo Diaz: showed early promise but now faded to obscurity. Doubtful to even reach Championship standard
Bryce Hosannah: struggled to even get game time in L2 so never anywhere near our team in any division.
Alejandro Machuca: totally pointless midfield signing who again never came anywhere near doing anything.
Oriol Rey: can't even remember this guy but a clear lack of any impression and a complete failure.
Ousama Siddiki: who? Exactly.
Kun Temenuzhkov: got us all excited initially but another false dawn. Disappointing but what can we expect from a dof who wouldn't know talent if it slapped him in the face?
Ryan Edmondson: struggling for Aberdeen. Nuff' said.
Aapo Halme: looked decent but failed to make the grade. Might one day make it to Championship level.
Yosuke Ideguchi: very odd and ultimately doomed transfer as we never got to see him do anything- even fot the u23s. Maybe an attempt at getting some foreign interest or something. Anyway, terrible.
Laurens De Bock: complete disappointment probing just because you were alright in Belgium doesn't mean you are even good enough for the Champ. Take note Lang fans.
Oliver Sarkic: now at Burton Albion. Says it all.
Adam Forshaw: injury prone and will maybe never be fit enough or good enough to make the Prem. We shall see but at the moment 4 years of wasted wages.
Sam Dalby: another oftf that was touted as the next big thing only to fade to complete obscurity.
Pascal Struijk: fabtastic player. Probably the only real success from our youth ranks that Orta brought in. Payed a fair bit for him though so not exactly an unknown.
Tyler Roberts: Bielsa evidently sees talent but yet to make the grade for me. Injury hit career so maybe still time. Big season for him.
Jordan Stevens: looked like he was getting close only to fade and now in L1. Not good enough.
Joshveer Shergill: playing non league now.
Leif Davis: 'very good. Could still make it so jury's out
Barry Douglas: never really played well and then let go. Wolves cast off that never made it. Has to go down as a miss.
Patrick Bamford: England's no.9 has to go down as a success buy took a heck of a lot of work from Bielsa. Think this is more of a success for the coach than the dof.
Kiko Casilla: error prone and very expensive in wages. Cost us promotion. Think Orta saw the words Real Madrid and never questioned why he had never been first choice in his career. Now we know.
Mateusz Bogusz: too early to say but finally seems to be coming good on his latest loan. Will he ever get to the Prem though? Hope so.
Morten Spencer - too young to tell. Tbc
Stuart McKinstry - tbc
Liam McCarron -Â tbc
JKA: Continuing us a fortune in wages and transfer fee and may yet cost us another £18m. Enough to buy Raph and have change left over. Already Ortas biggest blunder.
Rafa Mujica: yet another disappointment who never managed to make it
Guillermo Amor: never made an impression
Alfie Hughes: tbc
Josh Galloway: tbc
Elia Caprile: could still do something
Ian Poveda: looked alright for a few games but another Sako with zero end product and now a bad attitude has seen him leave. Failure.
Hedler Costa: total disappointment and utter failure. Waste of money that we didn't have and if we hadn't got promotion when we did would have seen the club go into severe financial difficulties as we couldn't afford £15m in the Champ. Orta almost caused a Ridsdake scale meltdown here. Thank goodness he has been moved on as waste of time and money.
Illan Meslier: not cheap at 5m but has definitely proven his worth. Could be Orta's best gamble yet.
Rodrigo: record signing and so far a big disappointment. We would have been better spending £27m on an actual no.10. Already looking like another expensive flop.
Robin Koch: jury's out really. definitely not a DM which is one reason why we signed him and another injury prone. Time will tell.
Diego Llorente: brilliant in his day but very injury prone. Time will tell buy maybe the poor injury record was why we got him cheap and perhaps the reason he keeps breaking under Bielsas tough training regime meaning not a great fit for Leeds
Raph: brilliant. Another gamble that paid off or has looked like that so far. Still don't know why Rennes let him go although Can be inconsistent so maybe his coach couldn't get the best out of him.
Joe Gelhardt, Charlie Allen, Dani van den Heuvel, Cody Drameh, Sam Greenwood, Crysencio Summerville: too early to say. Could end up falling short or being the next Pascal. Need to be making an impression on the firsts this year or probably more flops.
Firpo: tbc
James: tbc
Youth players and new keeper from this year: tbc
So around 4 successes so far from around 40 players. Not a great return imo.
05 Sep 2021 13:28:47
2 other signings Alf : Bielsa and Harrison
BUT
Reading this list it is worse than I thought, thoroughly conclusive and shocking : an absolute waste of finances with so many
Radz may be pals with Orta but Leeds could do so much better with a far better DoF.
05 Sep 2021 13:58:52
Alf - many of the names (possibly around a third) you listed were recruited in Orta’s first year to ensure we had a competitive academy team at the u23 level, as the academy had been decimated by Cellino. And to be fair, they were decent at that level, and could probably have made it at Championship level within two years under a different manager. When recruiting them Orta could not have known that Bielsa would be running the show the next year, with his extraordinary demands on all his players.
If you read Hay’s new book you will see that following the failure of Christensen, and Heckingbottom, Orta and Radz came to the join decision that a total step change was needed to ensure we got into the Prem, and did so quickly. Radz asked Orta for his suggestions re the next manager and Orta suggested Bielsa, having previously tried to get him at Seville. When it became known that Leeds were to approach Bielsa, Radz received load of messages saying he was mad to be consider this, and pointing out his recent record of falling out with club hierarchies in Europe. Radz was getting cold feet but Orta convinced him to stick with it, telling him he would take responsibility if it went badly - and expect Radz to sack him.
The decision to go for Bielsa, his demands from players and the subsequent promotion, have completely changed the requirements on academy players, and also made us more attractive to better players- inevitably leading to a progressive shedding of many of the players previously recruited for the academy.
05 Sep 2021 14:23:50
Clu how much is the Leeds PR team wasting on your fees lol?
05 Sep 2021 14:24:01
If we are including managers in the list we also have to include the awful signings of which there were quite a few including Christiensen, hockaday etc.
Yes sorry Harrison: has developed into a very good player but again I would say probably more to do with outstanding coaching than a masterstroke on the signing front. I could also point out that if we'd have signed him last year as we should have done we would have saved a few mill but even so still a decent return at his eventual sale price.
05 Sep 2021 14:28:27
The problem is Clu your 'sources'tend to be people such as Phil Hay who are desperate to stay close to the club (as that is how he earns a living) so therefore he is not going to say something inflammatory about the current hierarchy for fear of losing those contacts. Therefore it is safe to say his articles are biased toward the hierarchy and always have been. don't forget Radz is also a media PR master as well well any info he allows to get to the likes of Hay will doubtless have more spin than a tumble dryer.
Shame Orta didn't put his neck on the line for the JKA transfer where he wasted much more money than had Bielsa not worked out but on that decision you are oddly defensive.
05 Sep 2021 14:37:08
I don’t think you can question clueless knowledge or opinion.
He knows 10 times more about Leeds day to day than I do.
05 Sep 2021 14:53:02
Spot on Alf re Hay.
05 Sep 2021 15:03:49
Alf - as you are so keen to list all of Orta’s ‘failures’, perhaps you would care to list all of the managers you hold him responsible for. So far you have listed two.
05 Sep 2021 16:58:50
Sorry Alf, way too negative a post for me. You basically list everything as a failure or a gamble that paid off, utter nonsense, look where we are, that’s not down to gambles, admittedly there are some purchases that didn’t pay off, but that happens at EVERY club in the world, but we have a great first team. Not sure what you want, is it Orta to go? V strange.
05 Sep 2021 18:36:05
I appreciate the post Alf as it must of took a while but as midfield general says, all good signings are put onto coaching masterclass yet all unsuccessful transfers are blamed solely on orta. At least 50% of them transfer are for the academy and the success rate for any academy players are low so shouldn’t be counted.
Pontus can’t go down as a orta signing because monk found him yet any other player on the list that failed is solely orta?
All transfers are a gamble but hopefully an educated one, Rodrigo, Anita, Douglas, de bock and I’m sure a few others were all successful at there previous club and it’s a reasonable assumption to assume they would be good enough for us at the time too.
Forshaw was rarely injured before he came to Leeds and that's orta’s fault he’s injured now because?
If he was that unsuccessful we wouldn’t have progressed under him but we have and we are sitting higher than we have in over 16 years yet, you will probably tell me that’s because of everyone else but Victor.
05 Sep 2021 21:04:14
Jansson was already at the club before Orta joined on loan so hardly found by Orta. He signed on a permanent after Radz took over I believe. I don't think any of the other players from thag era were signed after the change over.
Yes I want Orta to go, I have said many times with the resources we have someone else could do many, many times better. I think he wastes too muxh time looking for young gems to try and further his own reputation rather than for the good of the club. Don't forget Middlesboro got relegated largely due to his poor signings and similar approach.
Monk himself was more successful in his one year signing Pablo Hernandez, Rob Green, Luke Ayling, Bartley and Pontus Jansson to the club with way less budget than Orta has had.
05 Sep 2021 21:28:50
once again another spot on post Alf.
06 Sep 2021 11:38:35
Football is a business, whether we like it or not and Orta will be judged on his P&L I would think. Of the 4 successes (Raph, Messlier, Struik and Bamford) , we could easily get 150-200 million, which is roughly our outlay past 2 or 3 seasons, disregarding our fees in and other player values so from that view he's done his job.