Leeds United transfer window Q&A part 2 - Club chief on deadline day 'big win', Shea Charles pursuit & Jed York
Part two of Leeds United managing director Robbie Evans’ post-transfer window sit down with local media.
Leeds United managing director Robbie Evans admits the completion of two signings felt the ‘most unlikely’ of the club’s three deadline day scenarios.
The Whites went into deadline day with five new faces already through the door but there still felt like plenty to do, most notably on the left side of the pitch. Gabriel Gudmundsson’s injury left Daniel Farke without a natural left-back for the time while interest in the likes of Julian Brandt and Mykhailo Mudryk suggested a left-winger was also high on the shopping list.
Leeds eventually secured both positions, with Melvin Bard and Jean-Matteo Bahoya joining on loan from OGC Nice and Eintracht Frankfurt respectively. In a post-transfer window sit down with local media, Evans said the club would have been ‘pretty comfortable’ with zero, one or two deadline day arrivals but getting both in felt like a ‘big win. Here is part two of that Q&A.
Could you take us inside deadline day from the club's perspective? Because it all looked quite methodical amid the chaos elsewhere. Could you run us through how it all panned out with eventually getting towards Bard and Bahoya, who like you said you’d been tracking for some time?
Sure. And I'll give you a multi-part answer here. The first thing is, I understand the thrill of deadline day from the outside as a sort of fan spectacle, but I will say that internally I would like to avoid making deadline day part of our core operations, the same way you avoid January being part of our core operations. So please don't get used to it!
Secondly, to your question on the so-called “chaos”, it was a super intense day. I'm not sure it was chaotic, but it was very, very intense. The big hero of that day was probably Hannah Cox, our head of football administration, who along with Abigail Stenton got functionally five transactions done in one afternoon, as a loan deal plus an option on two different players operates like four deals in one day, plus they had to manage Willy's loan plus option as well.
The reason why we were able to deliver on that was because we had a plan in place, and had done the work already on both Melvin and Jean-Matteo previously, including not just the scouts, but also the coaching staff. When you have layers of preparation, you can react quickly to when things change around you, and I was very proud of the team for being able to execute, and for flexibility and capability on deadline day.
At the same time, as you've seen from around the league, my biggest gripe with deadline day is not just the kind of circus that surrounds it, but also that things are beyond your control and things can go wrong. You end up working with a player and his agents, and the other club, and various law firms, and even cross-national contract databases, and it’s all happening at once. The risk on deadline day is that you're not in control of the outcome. For example, at 11:00 PM and later on deadline day, we were coordinating with three different law firms to redline four different documents across multiple countries, and the pressure is immense while the margin for error is more or less non-existent.
Getting it done was great, and I'm glad that it seemed calm, cool, and collected from the outside, but it was a very intense day for us, and I have been kindly asked by Hannah to never do that ever again! Third, in terms of the strategy and the players who came in: Coming into deadline day, the key for us is to have optionality. Because we checked off the biggest needs early, it felt like, as Daniel said, you know, maybe one or two more was the line he would use. We were frankly pretty comfortable with it being zero, one, or two players in. Two felt the most unlikely, if I'm being honest. One felt the most likely, but even if we didn't find anybody, we'd rather do none than do a bad deal.
So to get two good players on the sort of deals we got them on was a big win for us, but it was never required, because we like to avoid being in a place where the strategy requires a deadline day deal. That was the biggest frustration last summer as well, because we had Facundo fall through, and we found ourselves needing a deal on deadline day despite hoping to avoid it.
This year, our sort of internal mandate was, "Let's not have the whole team hinging on deadline day” and frankly, it didn't, but also the team is stronger because of what we got done that day as well, so it was certainly a net positive.
How confident were you of landing James Trafford? Always very confident? Can you explain what the timeline was?
I believe I gave the phrase last summer that life in football is a "healthy level of anxiety at all times.” You are never fully confident until a player is done. James is a player, being an English national team player, the future England number one in our opinion, a world-class player already and getting better still, that you are always wary of the competition. Until it's done, you're never overconfident. I think that healthy fear of the competition helped us, because we were on our A-game the entire time with him and trying to be very deliberate in our approach to his camp and be responsive to their needs and pitch the project as a fit for him and his career.
But no, in short, you're never fully relaxed until they've signed. And that was the case for him, certainly, because we knew that he’s high enough level that if some club out there, even a world-class club, has an injury in training one day they might just come after him.
What was the biggest difficulty in those negotiations? Because at least outwardly it seemed to drag on a little bit. What was the real crux of the issue with City or with James to get it over the line?
I don't think those negotiations were especially difficult. They were just slow, because of the World Cup in particular. This summer, broadly speaking, was a really intense one, a really odd one, because a lot of players wanted to find a solution before the World Cup, and some wanted to wait until after, so there were different phases.
For those individual players, they were sort of max intensity in their part of the window, but for us it was max intensity the entire time because the window came in waves. James was sort of slow then fast. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was just the nature of the World Cup and him coming back from that.
Talking about landing your top targets, how easy has it been to sell the club, now you're not a newly promoted club in the league?
I think certainly in approaching the player market, it's an easier sell now. But it was a pretty straightforward sell last summer too: The key thing we push on is the project, the backing, and the club.
Someone like Tarik, being a 23-year-old player from Bosnia, he might not realise that Leeds is one of the biggest clubs in the world. A lot of our pitch is talking about, even in the relegation years, even in the Championship, that we have some incredible figures on just how big this club actually is. So you're not having to sell or spin the project, it’s more like educating on the project, because Leeds genuinely is massive.
It certainly got a bit easier this year, not all of those guys would have come last summer - even if we know Harry was interested then - as it can only help to have good seasons in the Premier League. Even finishing 14th versus, you know, just barely avoiding relegation helps too.
There's a real perception of the club as being stable. The agents see that, the players see that, and so they want to be a part of something that's going somewhere. They see this as joining an ascending project.
People from further afield seem to have sat up and taken notice about what you've done this summer. Predictions generally are very positive for how you're going to go...
Definitely. I've seen quotes from folks like James, and they're talking less about avoiding relegation and more about looking up the table. I think we all have that same view even while remaining respectful to the challenge this league presents.
So, again, the key is people want to be a part of something that's going somewhere. Whether you’re in my role, or if you're in Daniel's role, or you're in the player's role, they want to be part of an ascending project. The players coming in believe they're part of a great club that's going to get back to great heights, and that's very exciting for all of us.
Last year you described Dominic as a £20 million investment. How would you describe the outlay on Harry Wilson overall, rather than just a free signing that's arrived for nothing?
I don't think I'll get into the exact financial equivalency but I do view him as a player in that same realm of being a player worth teens of millions, even in his late 20s, as far as the quality of player we're getting. I would answer the question more along the lines of, we finished behind Fulham last season and got their player of the season on a free and it's hard to imagine that being a bad idea.
Especially given our focus on set pieces, Harry’s delivery, both on indirect and direct free-kicks, and needing to fill that right-sided left-footer role, he's a perfect fit for us. So I'll skip the price tag question and just say he's a high-value player and we’re thrilled to have him.
Can we box off Brandt? Obviously that was a very particular profile of player. Were there any other targets that were in that mould? Can you explain about the patience that was used there, and if that impacted anything else happening?
Julian fits in the category of the now-often-used phrase "market opportunity” where it was a combination of a player we knew, Daniel knew, a top talent and free agent who fit our system of play. Looking at that ratio of expected production versus price, he was one to go after early. He would have played in that left inside 10 in a 3-4-3 for us. Were the other players of that ilk out there? Yes. Were they going to be as easy a fit to our long-term plan, current squad, dressing room, SCR, etc? Definitely not.
(After Brandt didn’t happen) It became a debate of do you go for more of that 10 type versus more of a direct winger type. I think also having Harry and Brenden in, the mandate from Daniel late in the window was to have the next attacker be one that can get down the pitch, in the model of Noah or, ultimately, Jean-Matteo. That’s what led to the Mudryk discussion as well. The plan is always evolving, down to the day, and when Julian rolled off, it became less about another 10 and more about a direct left wing. That's why we ended up with Jean-Matteo.
What was the reality of the Shea Charles situation? It rumbled on for a long time. How would he have fit in if you had got him?
It was just a matter of we had our overall squad building goals, we had our financial parameters, and we had a view on where we could fit the player in terms of the sacrifices or compromises elsewhere that have to happen because of him. At some point, you hit a point where it just felt like it's not the right thing for us to do, and so you walk away from that.
Again, that was in the kind of more of a market opportunity. There weren't a lot of players in midfield that we felt had the right age, profile, and fit to go after. When we didn't get that one, it wasn't an urgent need to go and sign a midfielder because our midfield is quite strong, actually. So it was worth looking into, and we did, and then at some point it felt like it was no longer the right value for us and the best move was to have the discipline to walk away.
So you would've been open to maybe moving on a Sean or Ao to make space for Shea? Is that the reality of the situation?
I think if Shea came in, it would obviously affect the playing time for other players. I won’t dig into the specifics of what would happen as far as the rest of the midfield, but obviously it's a bit of a zero-sum game in terms of minutes and we'd have to make adjustments or compromises if he had come in.
Alongside the incoming transfers, you also secured long-term contracts for the likes of Ampadu, Rodon, Bogle, and Aaronson. How important was that for squad harmony, and to keep that Championship title-winning core together, when you're also adding these new, more unknown elements?
I think continuity has been one of our biggest strengths across the entire project, whether it's the staff or it's the players. Keeping the guys who are delivering for us in the building has been really critical. It also keeps that dressing room continuity and positive spirit going.
We were thrilled to get those guys extended. I also think at a more broader macro level, the move from PSR to SCR will encourage more of keeping your current players, instead of being a constant churn of trading. So for loads of reasons across sporting, continuity, spirit of the group, and so on we are glad to have those guys stick around for years to come.
Can we talk about Jed York? Clearly he hasn't got an official position at the club, but paperwork would suggest he's got quite significant control behind the scenes. Paraag mentions him quite frequently. Can you explain how involved Jed is, and whether that is significant or not, and maybe what his future looks like here?
As far as the financial ownership structure is concerned, Jed is a person of significant control at Companies House. Operationally, he's very hands-off. At both clubs, Niners and Leeds, his management approach is to find people who he thinks can do the job and then give them the space and capital to operate, and let them take it from there. I've known him for 20 years, but as far as day-to-day, he's really not involved at all. At Leeds it’s Paraag and I, Daniel and the club staff, and the board running things.
Would you expect there to be any repercussions from the Premier League? I know the NFL had a big statement it made. Do you think there could be a repercussion from the Premier League in that respect as to saying, you know, "Maybe you shouldn't have this guy around"?
No. My expectation is that from both the Premier League and from the IFR, this would be an open-shut matter pretty quickly.