Craig Scott

Thu 29 October 2020 17:00, UK

Ever since Victor Orta was hired by Andrea Radrizzani as the director of football at Leeds United, the Yorkshire club’s recruitment has undergone a major change.

In his first year at Elland Road, Orta clearly went for quantity over quality as he added 30 – yes, 30 – new players to both Leeds’ first-team and Under-23s squad.

Most of those players have already left the Yorkshire club but each year, Orta has used his connections in European football to continue adding foreign players to the club’s Under-23s.

Because so many players were brought in to join players who’d already risen through the ranks of Leeds’ academy, it was natural that a lot of players were sent out on loan so that they could get a good level of game-time and continue their development.

But time after time, Leeds have made the same mistake of sending players out on loan to clubs where they simply don’t get enough game-time.

Leeds hired a loan manager, believe it or not, last year when Simone Farina arrived at Thorp Arch to help find temporary homes for players and monitor their performances.

But Farina’s arrival doesn’t seem to have helped out too much with players who are sent out on loan outside of the UK.

Take Rafa Mujica as a recent example.

Last year, the Spanish striker, who’s 22-years-old now, was sent out on loan to Extremadura where he played just seven times in Spain’s second-tier before that loan deal was terminated.

He was then sent to Villarreal to play for their B team instead and played seven out of seven league matches before the season was scrapped.

In the most recent transfer window, Mujica was loaned back out to Spain and is currently on the books at Real Oviedo, where he’s played a total of 34 minutes with three appearances off the bench in the Segunda Division.

While Mujica is to some degree getting game-time, it’s really not good enough that he’s barely getting any game-time when it was clear at Villarreal B there are teams in Spain that would play him regularly.

It wouldn’t be so bad if this doesn’t happen so often.

Yosuke Ideguchi, Ouasim Bouy, Kun Temenuzhkov, Laurens De Bock and Adrian Balboa are other players who Leeds have sent out on loan under the watch of Orta and have barely played.

And people wonder why nothing came of these players in Yorkshire.

Leeds need to do better at finding loan clubs that will actually play these players rather than just sending them to the club that’s highest up in Spain’s football pyramid or has the best training facilities.

Farina’s only been at Elland Road a year but what’s happening to Mujica suggests that not enough has been done to change these pointless loan deals.

Orta needs to tone back the signings of young players from Europe too because, let’s face it, hardly any of them have got anywhere near to Marcelo Bielsa’s first-team.

In other Leeds United news, Kalvin Phillips has shared when he might be able to play again.