How Leeds signed Lewis Bate from Chelsea - The Athletic 22/7/21

By Phil Hay and Simon Johnson

To understand how competitive the academy transfer market has become, it is worth recounting the story of the recent sale of a teenage scholar by a lower-league team in England.

The player in question, an under-18, had a choice of Premier League clubs to sign for and held most of the cards in negotiations. The bidding was so lively that at least one of the clubs courting him asked a senior first-team squad member to speak to him on Zoom and sell the move personally. The tactic failed and the youngster went elsewhere, but the boat could not have been pushed out much further.

Little by little, the trading of emerging talent at the higher levels of football becomes more and more like the trading of established professionals, requiring presentations, personal interventions and no end of engagement. It was the power of persuasion and a credible sales pitch that laid the ground for Leeds United’s latest academy deal, the signing of midfielder Lewis Bate from Chelsea this morning. Transfers like it no longer happen overnight or on a whim.

“Clubs are having to work really hard for these players,” an agent with several academy clients told The Athletic. “The rules after Brexit are making a difference too because, realistically, you have to pay more attention to young players who are already in the UK. Signing players from abroad is nowhere near as easy as it was, and in a lot of cases it’s pretty much impossible.

“It can be strange for the lads who are getting these offers and this much attention because some of them haven’t even played a first-team game. They’re being approached in the way that clubs approach deals for the first team. It’s often the same sort of process but that’s how the market is and that’s how you compete.”

Bate’s reputation speaks for itself. He had the offer of a new contract at Chelsea, the reigning European champions, and he was the subject of strong interest from Liverpool, West Ham United and Southampton before deciding on a move to Leeds on Tuesday.

With so many options in front of him, Leeds realised early on that stamina and a compelling mission statement would be needed to beat the competition but four years spent crafting a strategy for academy recruitment gave them the tools to talk Bate around. By yesterday lunchtime he was at Elland Road and set to undergo a medical before finalising a three-year deal.

The 18-year-old ranked very highly on the list of prospects monitored by Victor Orta, Leeds’ director of football, and their head of emerging talent, Craig Dean.

Each summer at Elland Road brings a dual approach to transfers, covering first-team targets and academy recruits. Leeds set aside budgets and shortlists for both and while their youth-team business does not centre around exorbitant fees, they track certain players for long periods and are highly responsive to opportunities which represent value for money: Bate for just over £1 million, Joe Gelhardt for £700,000 from Wigan Athletic and Cody Drameh for £400,000 from Fulham. Bate is their second academy signing of note this summer following Amari Miller’s arrival from Birmingham City.

Both players will slot into the under-23s squad initially but Leeds and head coach Marcelo Bielsa have built an extra layer into the pecking order at their Thorp Arch training ground by creating what they call the “emerging talent group” — the academy players who, in the eyes of Bielsa and other prominent coaching staff, are closest to breaking into the first team. Bate and Miller will fall into that.

Other names are on the radar too, including Celtic defenders Matthew Anderson and Leo Hjelde, and Leeds are persisting in forming a junior pool who, in a number of positions, might realistically succeed members of Bielsa’s current starting line-up. The club are confident Gelhardt and Drameh will have sustained careers in the Premier League. The same is said of Bate, and proven by the fact that Chelsea did not want the England Under-19 international to leave.

Bate, a Chelsea player from the age of eight, was regarded as a polite and modest boy at Stamford Bridge but his decision to up sticks a year before the end of his deal revealed a streak of single-mindedness. Chelsea opened contract talks with him in the spring and were, according to sources spoken to by The Athletic, offering acceptable terms — they and Manchester City pay some of the highest academy wages in England — but Bate had doubts about the pathway in front of him.

He made his first and only appearance on the Chelsea bench at Premier League level during a game at Sheffield United last July but that fixture was on Frank Lampard’s watch as manager and Bate was not convinced that successor Thomas Tuchel’s tenure would keep him as close to the first-team picture.

Moreover, the rapid development of Billy Gilmour left a big obstacle in front of him.

Bate admired Gilmour and saw his team-mate’s progression through the Chelsea ranks as something to aspire to but Gilmour was positioned directly ahead of him, with 22 club appearances and three senior caps for Scotland, including a start against England at Wembley in Euro 2020. Chelsea have now sent the 20-year-old on loan to Norwich City for the season ahead and regular appearances under Daniel Farke over the coming months are only likely to strengthen his standing at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea’s staff were in no doubt that, of he and Bate, Gilmour was the more advanced in his development.

The club floated the possibility of Bate leaving on loan, too, provided he agreed to sign a contract extension first. With options emerging elsewhere, Bate considered the offer and declined, unsure about whether the door to the first team had much chance of opening.

Tuchel is blessed with three elite midfielders in N’Golo Kante, Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic. He also has Mason Mount, who plays further forward but can drop into that area of the pitch. There was a suspicion that Tuchel might also look to make further midfield additions and, in doing so, squeeze Bate out further. Eventually, contract talks ground to a halt.

Lampard had been a big admirer of Bate and so too had his assistant, the former Leeds midfielder Jody Morris. Bate is 5ft 6in but feisty enough, and Morris saw shades of himself in the teenager.

It was Morris who got hold of Bate to tell him that he would be in the senior squad for that trip to Bramall Lane late last season. Morris, at 5ft 5in, had gone through a similar process of trying to get himself noticed at Chelsea far back in the 1990s and he and Bate seemed to understand each other. But in January, Lampard was sacked and Morris left his post, too.

Leeds have developed a knack of persuading academy footballers that the development scheme at Thorp Arch is a genuine pathway to their first team. As a Category One academy, they are also able to offer the highest level of under-23s competition, in the top tier of Premier League 2.

It helps in no small way that while Bielsa does not blood under-23s excessively, he has given debuts to more than 10 of them and he pays as much attention as he can to what is happening in the lower age groups. The best of the under-23s train alongside his senior players regularly and consistently help make up the bench on match days.

There was no promise of immediate first-team football made to Bate as discussions concluded successfully this week but he will not be far from the picture either — in the group of experienced midfielders available to Bielsa, Mateusz Klich and Stuart Dallas are both in their 30s while Adam Forshaw, who turns 30 in October, has not appeared for almost two years because of injury. Somewhere down the line, there will be a changing of the guard and Bate has the potential to be part of it.

For a seven-figure sum plus a substantial sell-on clause (in excess of 20 per cent), Leeds have landed a skilful left-footer who excels in dictating play and providing a creative edge. They have also completed the first academy deal of note between the two clubs since war broke out over the departures of Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods to Chelsea in 2006.

These were once the kind of transfers that Leeds were at the mercy of.

Their resurgence and strategic focus on academy recruitment is allowing them to play the predator once more.