In the summer, Jonathan Rowe chose to join Marseille over Leeds United despite The Whites desperately trying to raid Daniel Farke’s and on Sunday, it looked like it paid off.
Last season, England U21 star Rowe impressed for Norwich City as the Canaries academy star came into the senior side, scoring 12 Championship goals. It saw Leeds make a move to land the versatile attacker.
Leeds initially made a bid of £7m to sign Rowe, but it was rejected. It is unclear if Leeds ever improved that bid, but eventually the youngster moved to France. Ligue 1 giants Marseille paid £17m for Rowe.
Until the weekend, the London-born ace had not done much. Three substitute appearances, no goals or assists, one yellow card. But that all changed on Sunday night in an incredible clash against Lyon.
Roberto De Zerbi’s Marseille went down to 10 men just five minutes into the match, but still managed to secure a quite remarkable 3-2 win away from home in a game that had absolutely everything.
Watch as Leeds target Rowe scores incredible 95th-minute winner
Leonardo Balerdi’s red card saw Lyon dominate the first 45, but Alexandre Lacazette missed a penalty. Lyon did take the lead, only for Marseille to equalise and then take the lead themselves on 82 minutes.
However, Rayan Cherki scored for Lyon on 93 minutes. Many will have thought the game done but not Rowe. Yet to make a splash in France, he announced his arrival in the biggest way possible on Sunday.
Picking up the ball on the left flank, he turns and goes past a number of Lyon players before curling in an audacious shot from outside of the area. Ligue 1’s official X account posted a video of Sunday’s winner.
Did Leeds make a mistake in not pushing harder to sign Rowe?
On Sunday’s showing, without a doubt. But there is more to it than that, mostly the huge amount of cash it took Marseille to tempt Norwich into selling their academy product to De Zerbi’s new side in France.
Leeds’ biggest signings of the summer were £10m apiece for Joe Rodon and Largie Ramazani, seemingly unable or unwilling to pay much more than that on a single player during the summer transfer window.
Rowe is an exceptional talent but with Leeds in the Championship, it was probably a step too far in terms of price. Had Leeds been promoted, perhaps Farke would have pushed harder to do a deal for Rowe.
Receive a digest of our best Leeds content each week direct to your mailbox
