Leeds United made the decision to part ways with their sporting director Victor Orta in May of this year shortly before their relegation to the Championship was confirmed.
The Whites relieved the Spaniard of his duties alongside manager Javi Gracia and opted to bring the experienced Sam Allardyce to keep them in the Premier League.They failed to keep the team from finishing in the bottom three, and the former Leeds manager may take a large portion of the blame for the team’s demise due to his managerial choices and transfer transactions.
During his tenure at Elland Road, Orta signed a number of dubious big-money players, such as Luis Sinisterra, Dan James, and Brenden Aaronson, all of whom failed to have a significant influence at the highest level.
But, the current sporting director of Sevilla also saw great success after hiring Marcelo Bielsa, winning promotion to the Premier League, and surviving two seasons in the top division.
He also picked up a number of talented young gems in the transfer market and Daniel Farke is now reaping the benefit of some of those moves; including current first-team star Crysencio Summerville.
The fee Leeds paid for Summerville
Orta swooped to sign the then-18-year-old winger from Dutch giants Feyenoord for a reported fee of £1.3m ahead of the 2020/21 campaign.
He put pen to paper on a three-year contract with the Whites at the time and was billed as one for the future under Bielsa’s reign, having signed alongside Cody Drameh and Joe Gelhardt that summer.
The teenage maestro arrived in England off the back of a season playing regular first-team football for ADO Den Haag on loan in the Eredivisie.
Throughout the 2019–20 season, Summerville made 21 appearances in the top flight and made two goals and one assist from a wide position.
The 18-year-old ace showed off his fantastic dribbling ability despite his youth and inexperience, completing 1.5 dribbles per game that term with an amazing success percentage of 63%.
It’s possible that his impressive loan performances for Den Haag persuaded Orta and Bielsa that he was a great prospect who could mature and become a valuable first-team player for Leeds in the coming years, and that has proven to be the case.
