Leeds United transfer news: Phil Hay shares Georginio Rutter future update after club move in past week amid German interest
Phil Hay is convinced the Leeds United are planning to keep Georginio Rutter for the Championship season after their social media output in the past week.
The £35.5million January signing [Sky Sports] had a miserable introduction to English football as he started just one Premier League game and didn’t find the net in 13 appearances across all competitions.
Following relegation to the Championship he has been linked to a move back to the Bundesliga with Freiburg [Bild, 28 June] and former club Hoffenheim [Bild, 14 June] both linked during the current window, but after Rutter’s return to Thorp Arch was featured prominently on the club’s official media channels [Twitter, 3 July] Hay believes it backs up the picture he has that the 21-year-old is set to stay.
Hay said of the club-record signing on The Square Ball Friday (7 July, 33m 25s): “If you watch back some of his highlights from Hoffenheim he does look like a really talented, decent footballer so maybe the Championship is just what he needs to get himself going.”
“You reckon they’ll keep him then?” host Dan Moylan asked.
“It certainly looks like it at the moment, yep,” Hay responded before adding, “I also don’t think a club make a big play on social media and everything else in the way that they have of Rutter over the past week if there is not some intention there to keep him.”
Second chance
Rutter was handed a complete hospital pass by Victor Orta and the previous regime, with a massive fee shelled out midseason for a player who isn’t an out-and-out striker when that is exactly what Leeds United needed at the time – and still do.
For him to be just 20 at that point, in a new league, saddled with the weight of being the club’s record signing – a situation that had previously caused Rodrigo difficulties as well – and thrown into the middle of a season that was rapidly spiralling out of control represented a set of circumstances that did anything but make it easy for him to thrive.
For the manager he was bought for, Jesse Marsch, to then be sacked barely three weeks later saw the Frenchman’s season fizzle out before it began as Javi Gracia used him sparingly and Sam Allardyce didn’t even consider him a viable option when both Patrick Bamford and Rodrigo were injured.
In that context it wouldn’t be hard to see why the young forward might want to return to Germany, but if he is to be anything other than a hugely-expensive mistake at Elland Road it seems like a reset under Daniel Farke and a crack at the Championship has as good a chance as anything to lead to some return on investment.
Nobody is going to agree to put up anywhere near the sort of money that the Whites shelled out six months ago anyway, so on balance it seems like a positive step for him to remain and go again with a full preseason behind him.
If he struggles to get going under Farke in the second tier then alarm bells might start ringing, but the half-season in the Premier League was as good as a write-off thanks to forces outside his control, so in many ways his Elland Road career starts from now.
In other Leeds United news, the club have already banked a six-figure fee as a first-team man has made a swift exit after Farke’s arrival.