Victor Orta revelation about Victor Gyokeres transfer will leave Leeds United fans fuming
Leeds United supporters won’t be best pleased to hear Victor Orta’s admission about their previous transfer pursuit of Viktor Gyokeres.
Portuguese outlet Record reported quotes from a lecture given by Orta (17 November), in which he said he “didn’t want to” pay £11.7million to sign Gyokeres during his time at Coventry City.
Gyokeres went on to sign for Sporting CP – where he’s scored 66 goals in 68 games – with Orta instead opting for Georginio Rutter in January 2023, who failed to score as the Whites were relegated.
Speaking to post-graduates at the Liga Portugal Business School, Orta said: “When I was at Leeds United, I didn’t want to give 14 million euros (£11.7m) for him.
“Cases like Gyokeres’ are the good surprises that football gives us, those things that we can’t measure.”
Viktor Gyokeres transfer bombshell at Leeds United
Despite bringing the likes of promotion-winning manager Marcelo Bielsa and current Barcelona captain Raphinha to the club, Orta isn’t seen fondly by many United fans thanks to his big part in their downfall.
Passing up the opportunity to sign Gyokeres for a mere £11.7m will be gut-wrenching for supporters in hindsight, given the Swede almost fired Coventry to promotion and hasn’t stopped scoring at Sporting.
Orta’s over-ambitious punts on high-profile transfers are a key reason behind his unpopularity in LS11, and swerving the chance to sign a Championship player (at the time) is a clear example of this hubris.
Rather than getting almost-guaranteed goals in the form of Gyokeres, United got none out of Rutter before their relegation, and the Frenchman has also since left after a strong campaign in the second tier.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing when it comes to hypothesising ways in which the Whites could have stayed up, but Orta deliberately choosing not to sign Gyokeres is a damning indictment of his judgement.
In other Leeds news, injured captain Ethan Ampadu was hailed by a BBC pundit despite being absent on international duty.
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