Jon Newsome has told BBC Radio Leeds that Georginio Rutter looked lost during Leeds United’s defeat to Chelsea on Saturday, and admitted that it was worrying how naive he seems to be given what was spent on him in January.
Rutter had a difficult task against the Blues. Patrick Bamford missed the game due to injury. And with Rodrigo already sidelined, Javi Gracia handed the Frenchman a full Premier League debut.
Unfortunately, it proved to be a miserable afternoon. Chelsea are a side going through a terrible run of form. And yet, Leeds struggled to lay a glove on Graham Potter’s side.
Rutter looks lost in Leeds defeat
Rutter tried his best, once again. But he was unable to build on the promising display at Fulham in midweek.
Of course, Rutter was never expected to be the finished article when he arrived. But given the money spent on him and where we find ourselves in the table, it is imperative that he makes an impact in the coming weeks.
‘It’s naive’
However, after his display at Stamford Bridge, Newsome is not convinced that Rutter is good enough at this stage of his career to really help Leeds in this campaign.
“Today, in all honesty, I thought he was lost. I thought there were parts of his game, he’s dropping a little bit too deep for me. And that’s where he’s got to learn the game. But he’s got to have help. He can’t do it all by himself, in terms of learning the game,” he told BBC Radio Leeds.
“Somebody’s got to help him from the touchline. Somebody’s got to direct him, somebody’s got to coach him. But then, he picks the ball up 30 yards from our goal and gets turned and tries to do a stepover on a centre-half or midfielder, and loses possession on the edge of our box. Just little things like that, where you look and it’s naive. It’s quite worrying for me, because I look and think, ‘wow, if you think you can play that kind of football in this league, then you’ve got a real rude awakening’.
“Now, if we had spent £3, £4 million on him and he was a player we bought for potential, I get it. But £35 million, for me, you’re spending £35 million, you’re buying somebody who hits the ground running and makes a massive difference to this football team. And I’m not seeing that.”
January gamble may be about to backfire
Cards on the table, it really did feel that we had had a strong January transfer window. The signings of Max Wober, Weston McKennie and Rutter appeared to make the squad a lot stronger. And we were optimistic that we would get ourselves out of trouble.
Of course, much has changed since then. An abject second-half performance at Nottingham Forest saw any remaining belief in Jesse Marsch evaporate. Meanwhile, the injury sustained by Rodrigo is hurting us more than many of us initially realised.
All of a sudden, we do need a lot more from Rutter. And we are not getting the Raphinha-style impact that we hoped for when it was announced that the club-record was being broken.
The board can argue that an investment has been made. But should Leeds get relegated, you would imagine that he will be on the move again. And there is surely no way that the Whites will make their money back on him.
This is not a criticism of Rutter. As Newsome suggests, there is potential there. However, he has been thrown into the deep end at this point. And the early signs are that he is not quite ready to step up when we are crying out for a hero.
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