One of the biggest failures of Victor Orta’s time at Leeds United was his failure to get deals over the line.
Leeds missed out on a whole load of top players during their time in the Premier League, with the likes of Rodrigo de Paul, Kvicha Kvaratskhelia and Josko Gvardiol among some of the biggest disappointments.
However, perhaps the biggest missed opportunity of their last season in the Premier League was Cody Gakpo, who Leeds were desperate to sign late on in the summer window of 2022.
According to Jesse Marsch, via the Men in Blazers Podcast, Leeds were 99.9 per cent of the way to completing a deal for Gakpo, before a deal eventually fell through.
The first half of the 2022/23 campaign, as well as the World Cup, saw Gakpo perform superbly for both club and country, which meant Leeds had missed their chance and so he instead joined Liverpool.
Gakpo now worth £88 million
Leeds continued to speak with the advisors of Gakpo in the wake of their failure to sign him, but in the end it was too little too late, and he is now on the path to glory with Liverpool.
In fact, according to the CIES Football Observatory, Gakpo is now among the most expensive players in world football, valued in excess of £88 million.
With that in mind, Gakpo would’ve made the perfect player for Leeds’ old philosophy of buying young players, developing them, and selling them on for profit.
Ultimately that is a strategy that just did not work however, given that the majority of Leeds’ signings over the last few years are either out on loan, or won’t be sold for more than what was paid for them.
From the same summer as Gakpo, Brenden Aaronson, Rasmus Kristensen and Marc Roca are among the biggest examples of Leeds’ biggest failures in the transfer market.
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