Leeds Youth Buying Policy

Badonde

Badonde

Well-known member
Interesting to see Leeds recruitment policy of picking up the best youth at substantial cost.
Two are making their debuts today in the Cup
Greenwood - from Arsenal £1.5m
Bate - from Chelsea £1.5m

Their reserve team last year was packed with signings like this - no surprise they won the league at a canter.
(though 2nd bottom this year in a tougher League).

Suppose it seems like a decent strategy.
BUT Million dollar question - will they step up?
If these players are so good why are top clubs releasing them?
Personally I hope it goes horribly wrong because it's Leeds. :)

Noticed along with Balagoun Arsenal's next big thing up front was John-Jules who doesn't seem to be ripping things up at Blackpool this year.
Suppose Blackpool are blessed with a decent choice of attackers up front?
 
"If these players are so good why are top clubs releasing them?"

Ask Chelsea. They do it often. I guess an answer is a lot of these players are decent but not good enough for a squad place in a top 5 Club.
 
Cardiffdaffs said:
"If these players are so good why are top clubs releasing them?"

Ask Chelsea. They do it often. I guess an answer is a lot of these players are decent but not good enough for a squad place in a top 5 Club.
Click to expand...
Chelsea is just manipulation of ffp plane and simple.
 
Another couple:
Cody Drameh transfer for £1m from Fulham as highly-rated 18-year-old (linked with a move to Forest this window).
Gelhardt -Leeds snapped him up for an initial fee of £700,000 last year from a cash-strapped Wigan

Just thought it was notable how Leeds threw a 'superstar 11' together in the reserve league last year.
Interesting strategy that might bare fruit in the years ahead (hope not).
Could back-fire given that Bielsa runs with such a small first team squad.....as long as they stay in the PL they should be ok.

Given that their U-23's are performing so poorly this year perhaps this game isn't working????
 
Whoever Chelsea buy the usually make a profit on selling just because the player has Chelsea on his CV. See Bamford as an example.
 
£1.3million for Feyenoord winger Crysencio Summerville.
Leeds United confirm the signing of Celtic teenager Leo Hjelde in £1m-plus deal

Suppose it must be exciting for Leeds fans to have so many exciting prospects signing up.
But will it work?
 
The difficulty is that a manager would be awfully brave to play 5, 6 or 7 of these wonder kids at once in the premier league, even when they are 22 year old. So some of them will be ready, but not get game time because it would take the experience out of the side, needed to win games.

So, I think this strategy will be limited success. They will end up selling some of these players as they get frustrated for relative pittance and regret it, and some will get in the first team and prove value.

It's a bit like Chelsea 10 years ago, De Bryne, Salah and Lukaku all left because their career was being held back
 
Badonde said:
£1.3million for Feyenoord winger Crysencio Summerville.
Leeds United confirm the signing of Celtic teenager Leo Hjelde in £1m-plus deal

Suppose it must be exciting for Leeds fans to have so many exciting prospects signing up.
But will it work?
Click to expand...
Depends if they're any good, young prospects only occasionally make the step up to the big time. If Leeds somehow contrived to go down this season they would probably have a solid squad of good young players for the Championship though.
 
Badonde said:
£1.3million for Feyenoord winger Crysencio Summerville.
Leeds United confirm the signing of Celtic teenager Leo Hjelde in £1m-plus deal

Suppose it must be exciting for Leeds fans to have so many exciting prospects signing up.
But will it work?
Click to expand...
Depends on how much game time they get. They cant all play first team footie.
 
if they buy ten highly rated youth players at £1m each... nine of them might not make it but the one that does might sell for £15m+ which covers the loss of the others that didn't make it!
 
They are playing 'real life' football manager , buying wonderkids and hoping one turns out to be a diamond. Let's hope they buy a Cherno Samba or a Freddy Adu.
 
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