Salzburg ignored Leeds United £20m bid for Brenden Aaronson – Phil Hay
Leeds United were pretty much ignored by Red Bull Salzburg when they made a £20million bid for Brenden Aaronson in January, according to The Athletic journalist Phil Hay.
Leeds came up short in the January transfer window, failing to sign any new players despite Marcelo Bielsa’s squad being ravaged by injuries all season.
One player they pushed hard to sign was 21-year-old USA midfielder Aaronson, offering up to £20million to sign him from Salzburg.
However, Salzburg didn’t budge and Hay reports that the Austrian club didn’t even bother to reject the second bid for him, they just ignored it.
“With Aaronson, there was the initial bid of £15million that was upped to £20million. The second bid that went to Salzburg, they barely responded to it and barely paid any attention to it,” said Hay on the latest episode of The Phil Hay Show podcast [4 February, 3m11s].
“It was very much their way of saying, ‘this guy’s not for sale, he’s not going to be leaving in this window’. That was pretty much the message they’ve been giving locally in the build-up to the transfer window and it didn’t change at any stage.
“I’m absolutely certain there would have come a price whereby they would have said, ‘look, that’s great money for Aaronson, let’s take it’.
“But I think the feeling at Leeds was the premium on top of his actual value would have been a good £5-10million and in the end, they didn’t go back with a third offer.”
Rude
That’s one way of telling Leeds you’re not interested in selling Aaronson but, as Hay says, there surely would have come a breaking point for Red Bull Salzburg.
At the end of the day, Salzburg have the Austrian Bundesliga title wrapped up already and they’re more than likely going to be knocked out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich later this month.
We can understand why Aaronson would want to stay at Salzburg so that he can play in the round of 16 showdown against Bayern Munich – it’ll be a massive opportunity for him.
However, Salzburg have absolutely nothing to lose. The league title’s wrapped up already – again – and it’s not like they’re expected to progress in the Champions League and their hopes are pinned on Aaronson.
They could have demanded more for him in January than they could in the summer because in the summer, there are all these reports saying that they will be more likely to do a sale.
Clubs will know that and might even end up buying the USA international for less than the £20million offered up by Leeds.
In other Leeds United news, a journalist has mooted big-name arrivals at Leeds in the summer.