Victor Orta was heavily blamed for Leeds United’s relegation last season, and while he did get a lot wrong at Elland Road, enough time has now passed to acknowledge that he wasn’t all bad for Leeds.
Indeed, say what you will about Orta’s final year or so at the club, he did some fine work at Leeds before it all went tail up.
Orta was the man responsible for finding the likes of Raphinha and Ben White, and there are still a number of players at the club that have to be classified as bargain buys.
Speaking on The Square Ball Podcast, Angus Kinnear has now named a few of these players, claiming that the likes of Illan Meslier, Willy Gnonto and Crysencio Summerville are all £20m players after arriving for small fees, while he also named Pascal Struijk as a £20m player despite Leeds’ poor defensive showings over the past two seasons.
Struijk a £20m player
Kinnear named the Dutchman among the players he believes to be worth around £20m.
“We found some great players. Even in the team we have at the moment. Willy Gnonto who we paid next to nothing for, Meslier we paid next to nothing for, Summerville who we paid next to nothing for and Pascal Struijk who we paid next to nothing for. They’re all £20m players and we received offers to that level,” Kinnear said.
Valuable
Struijk’s performances over the past two years have been poor, it has to be said, but, at the end of the day, he still has a very valuable skillset.
He’s physically strong and fast, he’s left-footed and he’s not bad on the ball either.
If he played in a backline that was a bit more organised, we could see Struijk being a very decent Premier League level defender, but, sadly, he’s not shown his abilities on a consistent basis as of late.
Leeds clearly value him highly, and if they need to balance the books next summer, perhaps he’s one that the Whites could cash in on.