Adam Pope details new Leeds United director of football after Stuart Webber assumption
Leeds United will not be hiring a director of football in a similar mould to Victor Orta, according to BBC Radio Leeds journalist Adam Pope.
Leeds have been without a permanent transfer chief since Orta left Elland Road by mutual consent in May.
Nick Hammond joined as an interim football advisor over the summer but it still remains to be seen who’ll replace Orta permanently in the Elland Road boardroom.
Stuart Webber left his role at Norwich in the summer and has been linked with the vacancy in West Yorkshire but LeedsLive reported on 17 October that he’s unlikely to be hired.
Pope has spoken about the behind-the-scenes changes at Elland Road since the end of last season and suggests that the assumptions about Webber were wrong.
“It was [a temporary situation] with Nick Hammond, who’d come in to sort the transfer window out,” Pope told BBC Sport West Yorkshire, as shown in a video clip on Twitter on Wednesday (18 October).
“Of course, Gretar Steinsson, who’s been at Fleetwood and Spurs, has since come in as part of the backroom staff. There was a shift for Adam Underwood, as well, who was head of the academy [and now head of football operations].
“There were little shifts around. It was more collaborative I’d say, with Farke having the last say – that was quite clear when it comes to players.
“But the idea was that a new sort of – not a Victor Orta-type, not the lightning rod that was Victor Orta – that somebody else would come in and everyone jumped to the conclusion that would be Stuart Webber.”
Who will it be?
Based on what we’ve seen from the summer just gone, Leeds’ recruitment team is working well without a director of football.
Sure, Hammond was always going to be a temporary fix – but has he not done enough to suggest that he could be a contender for the job permanently?
It depends on what he wants but after seeing how well the likes of Joel Piroe, Joe Rodon and Ethan Ampadu have done – as well as the coups for Djed Spence and Glen Kamara – it looks like he could be the man for the job.
The exits that happened in the summer were almost completely the result of the previous regime.
Loan after loan was agreed but Leeds’ current staff didn’t have much choice about that.
Hammonds done poorly in some jobs in the past, mainly at West Brom and Celtic, but he’s proven he may have learnt from mistakes made in the West Midlands and in Glasgow to be an asset for Leeds in West Yorkshire.
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