Leeds chief Kinnear explains January deals difficult due to Bielsa demands

Football
23 Dec 2020 • 9:16 PM MYT
Tribal Football
Tribal Football

Tribal Football covers news from the Premier League, LaLiga and Serie A

Leeds United chief Angus Kinnear doesn't expect a busy January market.

Kinner says he and football director Victor Orta are happy with their options.

“We're always open to taking opportunities," he said. “Raphinha was just that type of opportunity.

“There is a list of our core targets we're going after and then there are other players obviously we would love, but for whatever reason we don't think they're within our reach.

“It might be because they're happy at their club, their contract's long, their salary's too high, their wages are too high, they wouldn't consider coming to Leeds.

“That's where we rely on Victor's network of contacts. When he gets the call a week before the window is closed, Raphinha is available, we didn't think he would be, then he suddenly jumps to the top of our list.

There is always the chance something happens like that in January, but the reality in January is firstly it's a very difficult window to generate any value in because people are normally panicking and therefore paying over the odds. We don't want to do that.

“The second thing is the summer window closed much later than it normally does, so January is coming much sooner and therefore the need to readjust isn't required.

“The third thing is, as we all know, Marcelo (Bielsa, manager) takes weeks to integrate a player into a squad and we support that, it's the right thing to do and it's proven successful, but if you buy somebody at the end of the January window and they take six or eight weeks to adapt and get up to Marcelo's fitness level, to understand the system, you're really only buying them for the last month of the season."