Phil Hay says Leeds could make second appointment after arrival of 41-year-old

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Leeds United could look to make a second appointment in their football operations department after the arrival of Gretar Steinsson.

That is according to Phil Hay, who was speaking on the latest episode of the Square Ball Podcast, where he was discussing Steinsson’s arrival at Elland Road as the new technical director.

Steinsson is expected to come in and help the fill the void left by Victor Orta, who was sacked from his position as sporting director back in May.

The 41-year-old has previously taken up similar positions at Everton and Tottenham Hotspur and will work alongside Nick Hammond for the remainder of the transfer window.

Hammond has now spent over a month in his role as Leeds‘ interim football advisor, having been handed the remit of navigating the Whites through a busy summer transfer window.

Hay says second appointment could be made after Steinsson

Due to the fact two people will now be working alongside each other on Leeds’ recruitment, Hay believes that could be an indication someone else could be brought in once Hammond’s short-term deal is up.

He said: “The thing we’ll look for when it is announced is the way in which the technical and scouting department is going to change and what Leeds plan to do to it. Clearly from 2017 onwards they’ve had a director of football in Victor Orta who has had a huge amount of authority and control over recruitment and scouting.

“I think Leeds would like to fragment that more to reduce the authority that one single person has. Steinsson coming in, he will have scouts around him, I think they will expand the scouting department and it still does scope for Leeds to go for a separate director of football, somebody else to help oversee the operations if they want that to happen.

“When Nick Hammond was appointed as interim transfer consultant on a short-term contract, who is still there and will stay on in the meantime – and I wonder whether if they have a good window if they’d be tempted to stick with him longer too – the club said they were looking at a DoF and setting the timescale for September, October time.”

This would certainly make sense and be a decent move from the club given how handing Orta singular authority in the transfer market ended up playing out.

Leeds have been linked with a move for Lee Dykes, who has done a superb job in a similar role at Brentford, and someone like him coming in alongside Steinsson would give the club a very good structure in terms of their recruitment.