Victor Orta’s time at Leeds United certainly came to a sour end, but one thing you cannot take away from him is his eye for young talent.
Orta was the mastermind behind signing the likes of Crysencio Summerville, Pascal Struijk and Wilfried Gnonto, and was also in charge of recruitment when Leeds tried to sign Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Josko Gvardiol, before they became superstars.
Summerville, Struijk and Gnonto were signed for a combined total of just over £5 million and through the £25 million sale of the former alone, they have already made a profit of five times more.
Struijk and Gnonto have been arguably Leeds’ best two players this season and huge bids have come in for both in the past, which were, of course, rejected.
Despite that, other than Orta’s appointment of Marcelo Bielsa, it is hard to look past his tenure as sporting director as anything other than a failure.
A mixture of poor managerial appointments and dreadful recruitment led to his dismissal and Leeds’ relegation 18 months ago. Unfortunately for him, similar problems are arising at Sevilla.
Orta eyeing reunion with former Leeds ace Archie Gray
Sevilla have been on a downward spiral for a couple of years now and Orta has done little to arrest that since his appointment.
Orta’s first season at the club saw Sevilla finish 14th, two places lower than the previous year. After 10 games of the current campaign, they are down in 10th.
As per Mundo Deportivo last month, Orta was roundly booed by around 2000 supporters at Sevilla reserve team match, such is the current discontent around his job. Nevertheless, he is still in the role.
And now according to Mucho Deporte, Orta is already planning towards the January transfer window with an audacious loan swoop for Tottenham Hotspur’s Archie Gray.
Gray only moved to Spurs from Leeds for £40 million in the summer, but has found game time hard to come by in the Premier League.
Having said that, Gray has been an ever present in both the Carabao Cup and Europa League, making him a pretty important squad player already.
The report states Orta has already ‘begun work’ on getting a loan deal in place ahead of January, though the acceptance is it will be hard to do after how much Spurs spent to sign him.
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Orta once likened Gray to Sergio Aguero at Leeds
Gray was in the U18s and U21s when Orta was sporting director at Elland Road, but even then it was well known it would only be a matter of time before he progressed into the first team.
In an interview with La Media Inglesa back in 2021 when Gray was just 15, Orta was already making comparisons to Sergio Aguero, so it should be no surprise to read he is now trying to sign him.
He said: “He’s one of those players you see every, I don’t know. I remember Kun Agüero and saying “what is this?” It’s something that happens once in a long time, so I wanted to mention Archie Gray.
“[It] has actually happened only a few times, in the South America Under 20s tournament Kun scored 10 or 12 goals or something like that, you could see he was different. I saw Ángel Correa in under 15s in San Lorenzo and it impacted me.
“I saw Douglas Costa when he was 15 in a Copinha São Paolo and I said “who’s this guy?” It’s happened only a few times. But yeah, Archie gives me the same feeling. Archie the other day against Tranmere Rovers gave me that feeling.”
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