Five weeks after the sledgehammer reports Leeds United had been ordered to cough up £24.5m for breaching Jean-Kevin Augustin’s contract, their record signing has been consigned to the 22/23 scrapheap and deemed unable to save them from relegation. Sam Allardyce’s admission Georginio Rutter is unlikely to make an impact until next season at the earliest is the latest hammer blow to Victor Orta’s recent legacy.
In a campaign which is going to the wire with Leeds needing favours from elsewhere to stay up, the decision to commit £35m on a then-20-year-old forward unproven in England has not aged well. One league start since Rutter’s January arrival said what everyone was thinking, but Allardyce, who watched the forward’s recent under-21 outings, has confirmed that suspicion.
“I don't know [if he can play a part in the final two games], to be honest,” he said. “I haven't seen enough.
“I've seen him play twice and obviously as a youngster and the position that we're in here, it is a next-season scenario for him. What is he going to need to do?
“He came in January and that's such a heavy price tag on his shoulders, but when you're young and you come to the Premier League for the first time, you've got to settle in and next season would be the big test for him because the whole of the Premier League demands much more than ability to be a Premier League player.”
Whether Rutter will have that chance to prove himself in the top flight remains to be seen. The Frenchman looks set for a watching brief from the bench as the Whites seek to save themselves against West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur.
Time may well prove Rutter to be an excellent piece of business for the Whites, but the last two campaigns have shown they do not have the luxury of waiting three or four years for players to make an impact. That’s even more true for acquisitions as expensive as the former TSG 1899 Hoffenheim man.
Rutter was not the only forward on Orta’s January shortlist. Coventry City’s Viktor Gyokeres, 24 and with 38 goals in his last 91 Championship appearances, was another.
Coventry were understood to be a determinedly unwilling seller in January given what they had at stake this season. Gyokeres’s contract expires in 2024, but the Sky Blues seemed willing to risk his value plummeting this summer for the sake of his role in a present promotion push.
Mark Robins’s side are going to Wembley for a 90-minute chance to reach the top flight and that stance in January could not have proven more successful. If it were not for Rutter and Hoffenheim’s willingness to do business, we do not know which way it would have gone with Coventry in January.
Every player has their price and if Leeds wanted the Swede enough it would have been hard to imagine his employer turning down more than £25m. You would need to look at where the two forwards are in their careers five years from now for a better handle on Orta’s decision.
Checking on United’s league status at the same time might be another gauge on that gamble.
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