Exits for Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha feel like a full stop on the Leeds United era which ended their Premier League exile, brought Marcelo Bielsa to West Yorkshire and awakened a city. This transfer window has seen the beginning of that transition into whatever the Whites are about to become next.
With Bielsa went the first layers of the sanding-down the club is getting. A great many of the players who won that unforgettable promotion remain in the building, but Phillips, the homegrown gem polished into an England international, and Raphinha, the Brazilian maestro worthy of the Champions League, came to define the Bielsa era.
Their exits will also directly provide the money which then precipitates that metamorphosis into the second phase of this grand Premier League plan. This is the model Andrea Radrizzani wanted, in action.
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The responsibility, as it did with landing Bielsa in the first place, sits with Victor Orta. The director of football has started quickly in this transfer window, but he knows the real meat of the market is ahead of him.
If Orta set the wheels in motion on Bielsa, he’s going to set the wheels in motion on this next stage where his use of the Phillips-Raphinha money could come to define his legacy. History will remember the Spaniard as the architect of Bielsa’s arrival, but a transfer window which triggers a second successful rise up the football ladder would deliver major satisfaction.
Orta has previously alluded to his long-held ambition of returning Leeds to the European arena before he considers his next challenge. He will know his distribution of this summer’s transfer kitty sets the platform for that charge.
As the likes of Mateusz Klich, Stuart Dallas, Rodrigo, Luke Ayling, Liam Cooper and Adam Forshaw enter their latter years at Elland Road, Orta’s imminent transfer windows are mapping out his succession plans. Illan Meslier, Rasmus Kristensen, Robin Koch, Pascal Struijk, Marc Roca, Lewis Bate, Brenden Aaronson and Joe Gelhardt seem to be shaping the new boundaries.
To steer clear of last season’s wretched 17th-place campaign, Orta knows quality must replace quality. There cannot be a net loss in talent on the field when this transfer window shuts.
The money will be there to be spent and Orta will have to earn his stripes all over again, just as he sets out to in every window.
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