Come back at left-back

You could be forgiven for thinking you’ve woken up in Yorkshire’s version of Groundhog Day. The air is fresh, the birds are singing and Leeds United need a left-back. This evergreen quest to fix that one position feels like it’ll extend beyond the heat death of the universe. But perhaps it doesn’t need to.

The problem is that we keep trying to be clever when we just need to be smart. For too long our recruitment philosophy has been shackled to Victor Orta’s gambling addiction. The desire to unearth a diamond from an endless sea of coal. To be able to sit back in one’s chair, hipster glasses pushed back up the nose, basking in the plaudits for finding such an incredible talent for such little money in such an obscure location.

For too long Leeds have tried to see the shine in players that other clubs overlooked, or to rehabilitate once talented prospects who never fulfilled their potential. To rescue perennially injured players and be their knight in shining armour, giving them a second chance at success. Predictably, though, this approach has a very low success rate.

Laurens De Bock and Junior Firpo are two wonderful examples of left-backs recruited more for Victor Orta’s dopamine boost than any sensible, measured expectation that they’d be good. Players without a proven track record at a high level, either about to be tested with a step-up or with the challenge to prove themselves not a flop, are a high-stakes game for a club with an awful lot to lose.

And lose we did.

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