After a rough start to the season, Leeds United finally look like they have found some form in the Championship, in part thanks to their summer signings like Joel Piroe and Ethan Ampadu.
That said, the Peacocks haven’t had the most success when it comes to signings over the last few years, and for as brilliant a manager Marcelo Bielsa was, some of his signings at the club were pretty shocking.
With that in mind, Football FanCast has taken a look at the ten worst signings Leeds United made during the Argentine’s reign.
10Liam McCarron (£250k)
Signed for just €290k (£250k) from Carlisle United, it might be a bit harsh to label the youngster a flop, but given how McCarron’s time in West Yorkshire went, it would be hard to call it anything else.
His arrival was met with hope from the Leeds hierarchy that after a few years bedding into the side, he would become a regular starter in the Premier League for the team.
Unfortunately, after just a single nine-minute appearance for the senior team in three years, it became painfully apparent that he wasn’t of the level required. He is now a Stoke City player and on loan at Port Vale.
9Helder Costa (£16m)
Now, this one might raise a few eyebrows; after all, Helder Costa was one of the most important players in the team that helped get Leeds promoted back to the Premier League in 2020.
However, that was when he was on loan at the club, but after the Whites splashed out £16m to make his deal permanent, he became incredibly unproductive – to put it diplomatically.
In the three years following his permanent move, Costa played just 25 Premier League games for Leeds, scoring just three goals and providing three assists. In fact, he became so unproductive in West Yorkshire that he spent last season on loan with Al-Ittihad and spent the season before that with Valencia.
His contract was terminated by mutual consent earlier this month, and he is still without a club. Oh, what could have been.
8Diego Llorente (£18m)
Signed from Real Sociedad in the summer of 2020 for £18m, Diego Llorente wasn’t dreadful in his first season; he was just injured for a lot of it.
That said, when he was playing regularly in his second season at the club, he just looked totally out of his depth. Leeds were a defensive mess in the 2021/22 season, and Llorente was a big part of that.
The Spaniard was loaned out to Jose Mourinho’s Roma in January of this year, where he remains this season. He may not have been responsible for all of Leeds’ defensive woes under Bielsa, but he certainly didn’t help.
7Eddie Nketiah (loan)
Now, hold your horses there, Arsenal fans; we aren’t calling Eddie Nketiah a bad player here, not by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, we have picked him for this list as the decision to take him on loan and then barely play him ranks as one of Bielsa’s most baffling.
The Arsenal forward was sent out on loan in the summer of 2019 and then recalled just a few months later in January over concerns that he wasn’t getting enough game time – valid concerns, at that.
It turned out that Bielsa favoured Patrick Bamford over the young Gooner, and while that ultimately worked out for the club in terms of promotion, it also directly led to the club signing off on the worst transfer made under Bielsa’s watch, meaning his usage of Nketiah has to go down as a huge error of judgement…
6Lewis Baker (Loan)
Our second loan player on this list is Lewis Baker, who, at the time, was seen as the next big thing to come out of Chelsea’s Cobham academy.
However, he failed to impress Bielsa and, just like Nketiah, was recalled to his parent club midway through the season over concerns about playing time.
That said, while the Arsenal man has since gone on to prove the Argentine wrong by regularly starting for a title-chasing Gunners side, Baker has since faded into relative obscurity and now plies his trade for Stoke City.
5Ian Poveda
Ian Poveda joined Leeds United in January 2020 from Manchester City’s academy for an undisclosed fee.
His move was met with quite a lot of excitement as there was a general expectation that he would be the next big thing out of the club’s academy.
Well, it’s been three and a half years, and we think it’s safe to say he hasn’t met those expectations, and if we’re being honest, he hasn’t even come close.
In all, the 23-year-old has made just 25 appearances for the club and has spent the last two seasons on loan at Blackburn Rovers and Blackpool respectively.
4Junior Firpo (£12.7m)
The story of Junior Firpo is similar to Diego Llorente’s. The defender was signed from Barcelona in the summer of 2021 for around £13m, and there was quite a bit of excitement surrounding his arrival.
Unfortunately, that excitement proved to be misplaced as the rapid full-back became part of a backline that conceded an astronomical number of goals across the 2021/22 season – 79 to be exact.
There have been moments since his arrival in which it looked like he would be moving on, but just over two years later, he is still at the club; aside from longevity, we aren’t sure we can say much else positive about his time at Leeds.
3Robin Koch (£11.5m)
Signed from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg for a fee of around £11.5m in summer 2020, the German centre-back came to Leeds with so much promise but ultimately left as a disappointment.
When he joined the team, he was getting fairly regular call-ups to the German national team, but in the three and a half years since he signed for the club, he has played in just four games for Germany.
Along with failing to live up to people’s expectations, he also spent a significant period on the sidelines injured. The move really was just a failure in all departments.
After playing a crucial role in some of the worst defensive teams the Premier League had seen in recent years and being a part of the squad that was ultimately relegated, Koch finally left to join Eintracht Frankfurt on loan.
2Daniel James (£25m)
Daniel James is our pick for the second-worst signing made by Leeds United during the Marcelo Bielsa era, and it’s not really close.
The Welsh international was actually set to sign for the Whites back in January 2019 and was even at Elland Road taking pictures and partaking in a documentary, but reported disagreements inside of Swansea City caused the deal to collapse at the 11th hour, leaving all parties embarrassed and Leeds without their man.
Honestly, the Peacocks should’ve taken that as a sign. Instead, the rapid winger signed for Manchester United in the summer and spent the following two years trying to make it at Old Trafford.
In August 2021, it was clear that he had no place at United, so when Leeds came knocking again, he jumped at the chance to rebuild his career in West Yorkshire.
The Whites agreed to pay £25m for James – £10m more than United paid and £15m more than they were going to pay in 2019 – and he joined the club on a five-year contract.
He would make 36 Premier League appearances in 2021/22, scoring just four goals and providing five assists. However, after just one year at Leeds, he moved to Fulham on loan, claiming that it was about game time.
He has since returned to the Peacocks and has played nine games in the Championship, scoring one goal and providing four assists.
In the end, there is some talent there, but a considerable fee, below-par attacking output, and jumping ship after his first season means we couldn’t place him any higher on this list. Maybe he’ll redeem himself in the Championship this season.
1Jean-Kevin Augustin (£40m in total)
Here we are then, the worst singing Leeds United made during Bielsa’s tenure as manager, and to call it the worst transfer in the club’s history might still be doing it a disservice.
The reason this deal was even signed off in the first place was that the club needed a backup striker once Nketiah was recalled.
So the club reached out to RB Leipzig in Germany and offered to take the promising Augustin on a season-long loan.
The Frenchman ultimately ended up playing just 48 minutes of football for the club, but the loan deal stipulated that were Leeds to achieve promotion in May of that year, they would have to pay £18m to sign the player on a permanent deal.
Now, as we all know, Leeds did make it back to the Premier League that year, but the pandemic put a halt to all football in March, and so when they did finally gain promotion, it was June, not May.
The Peacocks assumed that because of the unique circumstances, they wouldn’t have to pay the £18m for the striker, but as you would expect, Leipzig protested to FIFA, who then forced Leeds to pay £15.5m to settle the dispute.
However, it gets worse. The Athletic revealed earlier this year that they would also have to pay out the player’s entire five-year contract he was set to sign, which amounted to another £24.5m.
So, in all, Leeds have had to pay £40m for a player who made just three substitute appearances for them, totalling 48 minutes, which has to make this one of the worst transfers in English football history. If only they had given Nketiah more minutes.
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