Leeds’ transfer strategy evolution and the influence of Monchi’s Sevilla - The Athletic 27/8/22
Leading Spanish club Sevilla has been the domain of Monchi
for longer than the average executive’s lifespan in football, and in thinking
about Leeds United’s methods of recruitment, it is always worth remembering
that their sporting director, Victor Orta, cut his teeth under the man also
nicknamed El Lobo de Sevilla — the Wolf of Seville.
Orta left Sevilla nine years ago, but he talks about Monchi
— Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo, to use his full name — in the way Catholics speak
about the Pope; like the Godfather of scouting and the brightest mind he will
ever work for.
Sevilla gave themselves over to Monchi’s brain 20 years ago,
and it is to them that so many others have looked for secrets and knowledge:
they have a proven technique of buying players low, selling high… and winning
trophies time and again.
The club had a certain way with transfers, and in following
Monchi’s blueprint, their message to potential signings was that this was not
“it” for them in terms of their career — joining Sevilla was not the pinnacle
of the transfer market and they were not arrogant enough to think so. Players
thrived there and moved on, usually for healthy resale prices and to bigger
clubs.
Sevilla were comfortable with that reality, not least
because it drew in high-calibre talent and the Europa League trophy kept
landing in their lap. In the past two decades, they have won UEFA’s No 2 club
competition six times — including back to back in 2006 and 2007, and three in a
row from 2014.
One of the deals that stuck with Orta was Seydou Keita arriving from French club Lens in the summer of 2007. A year was all it took for Barcelona to buy him and Sevilla made a quick profit of £10million ($11.8m).
Leeds and Orta tried to use Sevilla’s proven pitch when they
spoke to Charles De Ketelaere this summer, attempting to talk the 21-year-old
Club Bruges midfielder into a move to Elland Road by painting the bigger
picture.
De Ketelaere was so good, or so well regarded, that he had
visions of himself at the very top of the game – so Leeds took that idea and
ran with it. Make waves with us, kid, and other opportunities will come up,
they told him. Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha had made the point for them this
summer with their moves to Manchester City and Barcelona respectively.
As it turned out, De Ketelaere opted to go directly to AC
Milan, but Leeds still feel that were it not for the presence of the new Serie
A title champions in the ring, the Belgian would have chosen them.
Phillips leaving for Premier League champions City and,
perhaps to a larger degree, Raphinha moving to Camp Nou has given Leeds the
guise of a stepping-stone club.
It is a model the board at Elland Road are happy to roll
with for now, and the way that strategy is regarded, positively or negatively,
depends on which aspect of it people focus on.
Plainly, Phillips and Raphinha were the club’s two best
players and they departed within weeks of each other. But their combined
transfer fees fell not far short of £100million and where Raphinha was
concerned, he has sprung from unglamorous Rennes in France to Barcelona —
albeit a chaotic version of them — in less than two seasons. The Brazilian’s
progress was a showcase to credibly tempt De Ketelaere with, and the money was
there to bulk up the squad.
Leeds had gone through two previous Premier League years
without selling anyone notable, but 2022 was a summer where the motivation for
cashing in on players was predictably higher. Their dressing room required
transforming and that transformation required funds.
While Phillips’ exit was motivated more by his desire to
join City than his hometown club’s need to generate cash, it has helped to
grease the wheels of five key signings: Tyler Adams, Brenden Aaronson, Marc
Roca, Rasmus Kristensen and Luis Sinisterra.
And the profiles of the targets Leeds have moved for in this
window suggest a renewed commitment to signing players before their peak and
for fees that do not count out the possibility of turning a future profit by
selling them on.
Kristensen and Roca are the eldest of the five newcomers at
25. Aaronson, the youngest, is only 21. They are old enough to make a splash
now but too young to be sure of being here for life or throughout their peak
years.
It is evident the transfer strategy at Leeds was drawn up to
meet head coach Jesse Marsch’s needs, matching the traits of his tactics, but
the club are bound to a model in which potential growth outweighs fully
developed signings. Leeds went as close as they have to the latter by paying
Valencia £27million for a then-29-year-old Rodrigo in summer 2020, but they
have gone through three summer windows in the Premier League without recruiting
an outfield player over that age — a cut-off which is not coincidental.
“This is a phase of the club,” Leeds’ owner Andrea
Radrizzani told The Athletic a few weeks ago, conceding the sale of top assets
had the potential to grate with the fanbase. His argument is that stronger
powers of retention will only come via commercial growth.
Across the Premier League, there is ample evidence of clubs
gauging where a particular sale strengthens or weakens their hand, and trying
to spot the difference.
Leeds’ first-choice goalkeeper Illan Meslier, for example,
was completely off-limits this summer.
With Phillips and Raphinha gone, the 22-year-old Frenchman
is now the easiest route to a big profit in the transfer market, but parting
with those two did not mean the club were open to selling everyone. It was
agreed at the start of the summer that Meslier would be around for at least
another year.
Meslier does not have to look far to find clubs who are fans
of his. Tottenham Hotspur are particularly keen and they are in need of a
succession plan for their current goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who turns 36 in
December.
Leeds appreciate that Meslier, if he proves as good as he
promises to, might outgrow them one day, but they have been able to create an
environment in which he feels the impact of progress. He plays every week and
the club have done nothing in the transfer market to threaten his place in
their team.
Signed at 20 from Lorient back home, Meslier has been able
to make errors and experience learning curves without confidence in him waning,
and this season the basics in his game look stronger than ever. He is spoken
about in the way a young goalkeeper would want to be spoken about, as someone
to keep an eye on. And he cannot be ignoring the possibility that he might get
the call from defending champions France to back up Lloris at this winter’s
World Cup.
The looming World Cup is of particular relevance at Leeds,
even though there is no predicting exactly how many of their players will be
picked to participate in it.
That uncertainty is good for Marsch, as it is a source of
motivation for players to maintain strong club form.
Rodrigo has four goals in the season’s first three games and
nobody at Leeds doubts that a place in Spain’s squad is in his eye line.
Jack Harrison is trying to seduce Gareth Southgate and the
talk of him getting the nod to go to a World Cup with England feeds into the
argument that coming to Leeds can open doors — in four years, he has gone from
a Manchester City loanee who could not get a game in the Championship at
Middlesbrough to a potential international the Elland Road top brass value at
over £40million.
Newcastle’s attempts to sign Harrison have hit a brick wall,
the Geordies misunderstanding completely the price that has been placed on the
25-year-old winger. Leeds will come under pressure to extend and enhance his
contract soon, but that in itself is a carrot: rising stock and a rising wage
at a club where things are happening for him.
Aaronson, Adams, Robin Koch, Diego Llorente, Patrick
Bamford, Mateusz Klich, Dan James and others; this World Cup is there for all
of them, to greater or lesser degrees, and that cannot be a bad thing in
keeping Marsch’s squad at full tilt.
One thing that can be said about this summer for Leeds is
that it has felt like a substantial reset.
Transfer business at Elland Road can swing from the sublime
to the ridiculous, from the abject waste of time that was Jean-Kevin Augustin
to Raphinha, Meslier and, for an £11million purchase price, a player with
appreciating value in Harrison.
Radrizzani accepted that in the two years following their
long-awaited promotion back to the top flight, Leeds’ recruitment had not
caused enough fireworks. Not enough of the players they brought in had lit a
fire in the Premier League and his only caveat was to say that judgement should
be passed over three to five years, based on whether Leeds had grown as a club
in that timeframe.
Tolerance of the model will also be dictated by Leeds buying
and selling on their terms.
Selling players is less political or contentious when their
replacements show promise.
When Adams plays as he did against Chelsea on Sunday, it is
easier to think of Phillips as a nice little earner. When Aaronson plays as he
did in that same match against the reigning world champions, it is easier to
think that the narrow line of No 10s behind Marsch’s centre-forward is not a
system that necessarily needs Raphinha for it to work.
The element of change becomes enticing rather than
depressing and the truth about Leeds’ five key signings is that they all made
sense. Sinisterra’s full debut in the Carabao Cup win over League One
neighbours Barnsley on Wednesday was another good start.
When Monchi talks about Sevilla and his experience of
recruitment, he often talks about the value of learning from mistakes.
Leeds have been hassled over their reluctance to sign a new
striker or another left-back and, if the final week of this window passes
quietly for them, the results in the first half of their season will show
whether they knew what they were doing; whether holding off at those positions
were errors or fair calls based on the resources they already have.
That, in microcosm, is the club’s transfer policy today:
avoiding bets that are firmly odds-on, setting limits and keeping individual
fees under control, accepting that some players are worth having even if they
merely pass through and establishing proven patterns of development that makes
those players want to pass through in the first place.
This is the era of the stepping stone at Leeds, where bigger
dreams are allowed to grow and where life exists outside the four walls of
Elland Road.
Part of the reason Phillips was allowed to move on was because
the club had no credible response to him telling them City was as big a move as
he would ever get. He was adamant and he was right.
That’s football today, and it is tempting to say that this transfer window has realigned Leeds as a selling club, a phrase which usually carries derisory undertones. But as Monchi once said, how many clubs aren’t selling clubs? And why can’t that policy work?