David Woods

Fri 24 July 2020 6:05, UK

Victor Orta has been newly installed as the Leeds United joker, alongside Gjanni Alioski.

The footage of him whipping out a pair of binoculars after the Derby game has gone down in Leeds folklore.

And Orta has been spotted celebrating hard for the past week, not least inside Elland Road when he was forcibly stopped from going outside to join the Leeds fans.

In his more normal role, Orta is in charge of transfers and, while these have been mixed throughout his tenure – for every Mateusz Klich there’s been a Felix Weidwald – there’s no doubting they’ve improved since Marcelo Bielsa arrived.

However, Phil Hay made a fairly shocking transfer reveal on Wednesday and it paints Orta in a whole new light.

In a brilliant interview with Kalvin Phillips, the Leeds midfielder admitted, “I was basically on the verge of leaving [last summer].”

That came after the play-off disappointment and with an offer from Aston Villa on the table.

Phillips carried on: “I came in one day and Victor (Orta, Leeds’ director of football) said to me, ‘Listen, if you want to leave then just let me know. If you want to leave, tell me right now and I’ll sell you’. I said, ‘I don’t know’. So Victor said, ‘If you don’t know then I’m not selling you’.”

Phillips is a hugely important player for Leeds and we’re not convinced we’d have been promoted without him.

Ther’s no shade on Phillips for this. A move to the Premier League must have been tempting after last season’s disappointment.

But Orta seized on Phillips’ indecision to prove to him that he really wanted to stay at Leeds.

This came after Phillips admitted that he’d told his mum he was going to leave.

We had no idea things were so dicey behind the scenes and we think Orta is owed a huge debt of gratitude for keeping Phillips at the club.

The binoculars? They’re just a bonus.

In other Leeds United news, ‘Tell me now and I’ll sell you’: Phil Hay details shock moment Leeds star was ‘on verge’ of exit