George Overhill

Wed 12 October 2022 13:15, UK

Leeds United remain “obsessed” with Cody Gakpo despite his apparent snub of their advances for a second time, according to Fabrizio Romano.

Having come close to bringing in the Dutch star from PSV at the end of the transfer window, only to be thwarted by a last-minute phone call from the Netherlands manager Louis van Gaal, it appeared the Whites had finally got their man when The Mirror reported they had overcome Manchester United to agree personal terms on 8 October.

But that excitement lasted all of two days before David Ornstein rained on the Whites’ parade with the news that the player wasn’t interested after all because his great form could get him a move to a bigger club [The Athletic, 10 October].

Now, speaking on his YouTube channel on Tuesday (12 October, 3mins), Romano said of the Gakpo pursuit: “Leeds United wanted to push in the following days and weeks. They wanted to push again for the January transfer but at the moment still no agreement in place on the player’s side.

“Because Leeds are obsessed with Cody Gakpo, but at the moment it’s still not something close on player’s side because he has many other opportunities, many other top clubs are sending their scouts to follow him.”

He went on: “Leeds are still there, but they know it’s not easy on the player’s side.”

That the most recent about-turn hasn’t resulted in the Whites exiting proceedings, despite the player now making his feelings known is starting to sound a lot like the attempt to buy Charles De Ketelaere from Club Brugge in the summer.

They could have been described as “obsessed” with the Belgian, as Andrea Radrizzani referred to him as “our icing on the cake, the special player” in an interview with The Athletic on 5 August.

The 21-year-old made clear early on that he wanted to move to AC Milan, but the Whites continued to focus on the deal for weeks, agreeing a €40million fee, only for him to ignore it and eventually head to the San Siro.

It is admirable that Victor Orta and the chairman have stuck to the task with Gakpo to the point that they appeared to come close in landing him in the last week, but now that the landscape has become clear, and his status has attracted other clubs he is more interested in, there is little use in wasting more time on the move.

If they had managed to get the deal done this month then they would have been rightly applauded for doing so, but a lot of time was thrown at the De Ketelaere chase when it appeared the only people who believed it would work were inside the Elland Road board room, so doing the same now won’t help anything.

The failure to secure an alternative senior attacker in that window is arguably becoming an issue again now that Rodrigo’s form has tailed off after injury.

So remaining fixated on Gakpo past the point of opportunity, when they could be working on lining up somebody that they can get for January looks like repeating the problems of the summer.

They have surely made it more than clear enough over the past two months that they are very interested, should Gakpo’s other options fall through, so PSV can come to them in the unlikely event that he can be signed.

Otherwise, having made a strong attempt to beat the rush for January, it is probably time to admit defeat and work on alternatives.

Any repeat of the September deadline day fiasco, partly caused by spending so long on De Ketelaere and leaving things late otherwise, at the end of January will not go down particularly well.

In other Leeds United news, fears over losing a star man to a Premier League rival should be reduced after comments from one of their players.