The mistake Leeds United now admit they made during Victor Orta’s time at the club — Leeds United News 29/11/23

Danny Bloomer

Leeds United have now accepted that they were ‘under-resourced on the recruitment front’ during Victor Orta’s time as sporting director.

Orta was sacked from his role at Elland Road after a series of poor decisions regarding managerial appointments and dismal success rate on player signings.

But in Phil Hay’s latest piece on the Athletic, he reports that Leeds now acknowledge they did not have a sufficient number of staff to oversee the ‘countless requirements of a major football club’.

San Francisco 49ers Enterprises are now working hard to address that and already have several people working alongside Nick Hammond, who was brought in on an initial interim basis during the summer.

Hammond, though, has seen his contract extended so that he can manage the next two transfer windows, and already has both Gary Penrice and Gretar Steinsson working alongside him.

Orta cannot get away from just how poor his record was in terms of player recruitment at Leeds, particularly towards the end of his time at the club.

However, under the 49ers it is becoming clear to see all the time just how much Leeds were lacking behind-the-scenes in terms of infrastructure.

Hay also reported in his piece that even if Leeds had stayed up, 49ers would still have felt as though they were taking over a club with a ‘Championship set-up.’

With that in mind, it just shows how fortunate Andrea Radrizzani and co were to land on a manager like Marcelo Bielsa in 2018, who almost single-handedly was able to make Leeds a Premier League club again.

That said, it is also apparent that Radrizzani just didn’t have the funds to take Leeds to that next level, which is not his fault, but does suggest he should’ve sold much earlier, while his reputation was still intact.