Victor Orta shares incredibly frustrating Leeds United, Viktor Gyokeres £11.7m transfer reveal — Leeds All Over 18/11/24

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Kris Smith

Leeds United could have signed Viktor Gyokeres for just £11.7million in the 22/23 season, but Victor Orta didn’t want to.

The Whites are in the Championship right now thanks largely due to the recruitment decisions taken up by the autonomous Victor Orta during the three-year Premier League stint.

After staving off relegation in 2022, Leeds had an opportunity to kick on but failed to do so even with hefty January investment on three signings.

Heading into the January window in 2023, Leeds needed a new striker to start hitting goals in consistently as Patrick Bamford and Rodrigo struggled to stay fit.

Georginio Rutter was the man Leeds eventually landed on at a fee rising to £36million, but he wasn’t the only target.

Victor Orta has now confirmed previous reports that Leeds could have signed then-Coventry City star Viktor Gyokeres for a meagre £11.7million fee.

He spoke at the Liga Portugal Business School, via Record, about this comical transfer blunder:

“When I was at Leeds United I didn’t want to give €14m for him. Cases like that of Gyokeres are the good surprises that football gives us, those things that we cannot measure.”

For the Sky Blues, Gyokeres notched 43 goals and 17 assists in 116 appearances, but has kicked on further with Sporting CP – he’s on 66 goals and 19 assists in 68 outings in Portugal.

Orta trying to save face, but most Leeds fans knew it would be a home run signing

The hilarity of these comments here are that Orta is trying to brush off the notion of it being a mistake, suggesting that Gyokeres’ form has skyrocketed out of nowhere, and no one would have been able to predict this happening.

Anyone who watched him at Coventry knew he was going to the top, and Leeds had an open goal to stay in the Premier League by signing him, and the fact he would have cost less than £12million hurts even more.

Orta was too fixated on risks outside of the Championship, though, and we paid the price for that by paying treble for a player that ended up not even being used.

Gyokeres is one of the biggest ‘what ifs’ in Leeds’ recent transfer history, and another development leaving Orta with egg on his face.

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