Transfer in's and out's rumours etc.

[Ozwhites]

He isn't going to change his opinion on Orta....even if we win the PL this year. Does everyone understand that with the continued responses? He ISN'T going to change!

[Rev72]

To be fair Orta has brought in a few decent/quality players but my God he has also brought us just as much sh1te as well but maybe we were looking for rough diamonds to polish rather than the finished product.Then there was the EFL FFP rules so you couldn't really spend a lot where quality was concerned.

No excuses now though.

[Jezleeds]

Not sure why you feel the need to "defend him"?

It isn't Orta who took a squad of players largely brought together before he arrived and made them into a promotion-winning side, it was (and remains) Bielsa, (and I have said many times that I was wrong about Bielsa!). THAT is why we are able to look at players of the sort you name (whether they turn out to be the right ones, time will tell). And we have retained players for exactly the same reason, they want to play having been coached by Bielsa, not having been selected by Orta (which the vast majority haven't).

Just to give some basis for my statements,

The following were brought in in Ortas first year as DoF (from June 2017), although some you will see were either the results of scouting before he arrived, academy graduates, or loanees from previous years who were converted into "permanent" signatures;

Arrivals 2017/18 (Orta arrived as DoF early June 2017) - Those with bullet points made material first team appearances, all others didn't

• Forshaw – Jan 2018
• Jansson - Aug 2016 (Loan)
• Saiz – June 2017
• Roberts – Jan 2018
• Alisoki – July 2017
• Klich – June 2017

Sacko
De Bock
Grot
Cibicki
Ekuban
Ideguchi
Halme
Wiedwald
Lonergan
Gomes
Borthwick-Jackson
Anita
Dalby
Bouy
Stevens
Lassogga
Pennington
Shaugnessy
Denton
Murphy

• Pearce – June 2016 (from Academy)

Bellusci

Total Spend - £25.59m
Income - £15.75 (£14.76 for Chris Wood)

As a comparison, let's look at the spend/income figures for 2018/19, the first year of Bielsa as head coach

2018/19 (Bielsa arrives early June 2018)

Spend - £10.26m (Bamford £7.11m, Douglas £3.06m)
Income - £6.57m

(None of these figures come from my head, and whilst Transfermarkt might not be perfect, at least it's objective).

No more supermarket sweep tactics on the part of our DoF, hoovering up non-entities and trying to get the various inexperienced coach/managers to use them in the 1st team, Bielsa wouldn't wear that.

None of the current success can be attributed to the performance of our DoF (unless anyone can supply evidence, not hearsay, about whatever part he played in Bielsa coming to Leeds), quite the opposite. If he had not had the influence on his scouting activities that Bielsa brought to bear, we would still have a bloated senior squad, filled with those he could find on the cheap in a desperate hope that one or two might turn out to be ok ("never mind the quality, feel the width", springs to mind), and we would be in the Championship at best.

I don't think anyone could argue he has been successful in the way we would have hoped, throughout his time. Mitigating circumstances in 2017-2019 in terms of FFP and our lack of funds also played a significant part in the choices he was making, you would have to think. The bottom of the barrel was always going to offer meagre pickings, compared to the middle of the barrel, where we're choosing from now.

The recruitment of Bielsa on its own is a huge positive. Perhaps over time his success rate has improved - whether that's down to Orta or Bielsa's choices of players, we'll probably never know - perhaps it's down to the poor coaching of some of the players who failed - maybe Bielsa would have helped them too to be a success?

Goalkeepers have been a particular area of failure, in my opinion - only Meslier out of, what, four/five has been even secure. However, it appears our model has taken time to bed in, and hopefully these big recruits this summer will confirm that the 'team' around Bielsa and Orta are in synch, and know what to get and when now.

[Jezleeds]

Lol but what else is there to do on a rainy Friday afternoon at work?

[Jezleeds]

Lol but what else is there to do on a rainy Friday afternoon at work?

replying to Oz's post....

[WTF11]

He isn't going to change his opinion on Orta....even if we win the PL this year. Does everyone understand that with the continued responses? He ISN'T going to change!

What continues to surprise me Oz, is that supporting my opinion by providing some factual basis for it in the form of independent information gets the same response (FFP, limits on spending etc etc, where it's clear we spent MORE and got LESS during Ortas year before Bielsa), and the same acceptance of "he did his best"

Can you imagine Bielsa fielding a player who had a tackle/strike rate (defender or attacker), as poor as Ortas? I think not

And to address Spaldys query in team playing, sure, been there, seen it, done it, and when you get to the level it club is at now, passengers in the team of any sort cant be accommodated.

[spaldy]

I'll bite on the passengers comment.

every team has "passengers". You can't have all "stars". The egos are just too great. You don't have to look far to see that. Citeh is loaded with the best and highest paid in every staff and player position and still lost last year. Lpool built up their team over 2-4 years and they certainly have some passengers as we discovered. However, the sum is greater than a collection of superstars like Citeh or Scum assemble. They were drilled by Leicester last week that probably spend a tenth of what they do.

The art is making sure that the passengers know their role. Perhaps Orta understands that MB and Rads are calling the shots and he just tries to execute the plan.

He would be missed if he had left this summer. I realize he's made a lot of mistakes but he's part of the fabric of the organization and probably one of those behind the scenes go that keeps things going smoothly.

we just agree to disagree. no big deal but in the end we'll end up top 10 this year and looking at Europe qualifying next.

[Tichi1]

What continues to surprise me Oz, is that supporting my opinion by providing some factual basis for it in the form of independent information gets the same response (FFP, limits on spending etc etc, where it's clear we spent MORE and got LESS during Ortas year before Bielsa), and the same acceptance of "he did his best"

Can you imagine Bielsa fielding a player who had a tackle/strike rate (defender or attacker), as poor as Ortas? I think not

And to address Spaldys query in team playing, sure, been there, seen it, done it, and when you get to the level it club is at now, passengers in the team of any sort cant be accommodated.

The trouble is it seems you are determined to beat us into submission with your opinion of Orta until we agree with you....
EVERYONE on here knows you don't rate him, most agree to an extent, but feel that overall the "Team" running the club which includes our DOF are on the right track, we are building what appears to be a successful squad that hopefully will establish itself in the Premier league this season and then progress onto bigger and better things.

We don't really need you to explain in such detail why you dislike Victor - or contnually list all the failures that have been at the club over the last three or four years, we all know, you have been free with your opinion of him for the past three years, so please - give it a rest will you? lets move onto the current playerds he's bringing in, and hope to enjoy their perfomances and a successfull season eh [Both Koch and Rodrigo looked a lot better last week given limited time at the club]

Just a shame about the French lad failing his medical from what we have heard of him.

[whitestomper45]

Not sure why you feel the need to "defend him"?

It isn't Orta who took a squad of players largely brought together before he arrived and made them into a promotion-winning side, it was (and remains) Bielsa, (and I have said many times that I was wrong about Bielsa!). THAT is why we are able to look at players of the sort you name (whether they turn out to be the right ones, time will tell). And we have retained players for exactly the same reason, they want to play having been coached by Bielsa, not having been selected by Orta (which the vast majority haven't).

Just to give some basis for my statements,

The following were brought in in Ortas first year as DoF (from June 2017), although some you will see were either the results of scouting before he arrived, academy graduates, or loanees from previous years who were converted into "permanent" signatures;

Arrivals 2017/18 (Orta arrived as DoF early June 2017) - Those with bullet points made material first team appearances, all others didn't

• Forshaw – Jan 2018
• Jansson - Aug 2016 (Loan)
• Saiz – June 2017
• Roberts – Jan 2018
• Alisoki – July 2017
• Klich – June 2017

Sacko
De Bock
Grot
Cibicki
Ekuban
Ideguchi
Halme
Wiedwald
Lonergan
Gomes
Borthwick-Jackson
Anita
Dalby
Bouy
Stevens
Lassogga
Pennington
Shaugnessy
Denton
Murphy

• Pearce – June 2016 (from Academy)

Bellusci

Total Spend - £25.59m
Income - £15.75 (£14.76 for Chris Wood)

As a comparison, let's look at the spend/income figures for 2018/19, the first year of Bielsa as head coach

2018/19 (Bielsa arrives early June 2018)

Spend - £10.26m (Bamford £7.11m, Douglas £3.06m)
Income - £6.57m

(None of these figures come from my head, and whilst Transfermarkt might not be perfect, at least it's objective).

No more supermarket sweep tactics on the part of our DoF, hoovering up non-entities and trying to get the various inexperienced coach/managers to use them in the 1st team, Bielsa wouldn't wear that.

None of the current success can be attributed to the performance of our DoF (unless anyone can supply evidence, not hearsay, about whatever part he played in Bielsa coming to Leeds), quite the opposite. If he had not had the influence on his scouting activities that Bielsa brought to bear, we would still have a bloated senior squad, filled with those he could find on the cheap in a desperate hope that one or two might turn out to be ok ("never mind the quality, feel the width", springs to mind), and we would be in the Championship at best.

You missed of Bamford, Meslier... and the long list of young players inc Bogusz, Caprile, Davis, Galloway, Stevens, Struijk et al... more importantly we are now Cat 1, which has major benefits ongoing for the club.

[WTF11]

I'll bite on the passengers comment.

every team has "passengers". You can't have all "stars". The egos are just too great. You don't have to look far to see that. Citeh is loaded with the best and highest paid in every staff and player position and still lost last year. Lpool built up their team over 2-4 years and they certainly have some passengers as we discovered. However, the sum is greater than a collection of superstars like Citeh or Scum assemble. They were drilled by Leicester last week that probably spend a tenth of what they do.

The art is making sure that the passengers know their role. Perhaps Orta understands that MB and Rads are calling the shots and he just tries to execute the plan.

He would be missed if he had left this summer. I realize he's made a lot of mistakes but he's part of the fabric of the organization and probably one of those behind the scenes go that keeps things going smoothly.

we just agree to disagree. no big deal but in the end we'll end up top 10 this year and looking at Europe qualifying next.

It's not a case of biting or note m8, honestly it isn't. I agree that not all the parts of the team can be stellar (although the more that are the better!), but I go back to my question about what Bielsa would do if a player in the squad he was responsible for was performing in relative terms as well/badly as Orta has in his particular role in he organisation.

Orta occupies a very key position in the club, there is only one DoF, and if he isn't performing (and for Leeds it should be above average), then the club won't perform as well as it could. Had we avoided the big money "investments" of the likes of Lassogga, or Casilla, JKA, or the combined costs of the "lower echelon" 18 or so that never played for the 1st team before being shipped out (universally at a loss), then clearly substantial funds would have been saved making whatever transfer kitty we had (in whichever season since he arrived) that much larger.

Directorship isn't usually the equivalent of "management" and is usually rewarded at a considerably higher level. If Orta is't "calling the shots" all that would be required once the shot had been called by others, is commercial management, a much less expensive activity. so save some money and dispense with the role of DoF?

Despite his retention, I agree with you that we will do ok this season (something I had real doubts over before seasons start). I'd still say that going forward, if a DoF is still deemed necessary, we need better.