Leeds United maintained their place in the top six in the Championship with a hard-fought 1-1 draw away against Norwich City on Tuesday night.
The Whites went 1-0 down in the first half, thanks to a penalty from Josh Sargent, and lost central midfielder Ilia Gruev to an injury, just days after captain Ethan Ampadu suffered a knee injury.
Daniel Farke’s side reacted well to that setback, though, and clawed it back to 1-1 in the 60th minute. Largie Ramazani raced onto a through ball from Wilfried Gnonto to find the bottom corner and his second goal for the club since joining from Almeria.
The West Yorkshire outfit are aiming to secure promotion to the Premier League at the second time of asking, after they lost 1-0 in the play-off final against Southampton at Wembley last term.
Leeds finished third in the Championship during the regular season and that meant they missed out on automatic promotion to the top-flight, with Ipswich Town and Leicester City going straight up.
The Whites were relegated from the Premier League in 2023 after a string of poor signings, including Luis Sinisterra, left them struggling under Jesse Marsch.
Luis Sinisterra's time at Leeds
In the summer of 2022, former Leeds head coach Marsch wanted to bolster his attacking options and opted to swoop for Feyenoord winger Sinisterra.
It was reported that the West Yorkshire outfit splashed out a fee of £22.3m to sign the Colombia international, after he had produced 12 goals and seven assists in the Eredivisie and six goals and four assists in the Europa Conference League during the 2021/22 campaign.
Unfortunately, Sinisterra’s debut season with the Whites was full of injury issues and underwhelming performances on the pitch in the Premier League, as the team were relegated down to the Championship and had Marsch, Javi Gracia, and Sam Allardyce in charge at various points.
Appearances
19
Goals
5
Big chances created
0
Assists
0
Key passes per game
0.5
Duel success rate
47%
As you can see in the table above, the Colombian forward did score five goals in 19 matches, which was not a dismal return, but his lack of creativity is clear to see.
The winger did not do much to create for his teammates, with less than one key pass per game and zero ‘big chances’ created overall, to go alongside his goal threat.
Sinisterra also missed a whopping 16 matches through injury, with ankle, muscle, and foot issues, and that limited his involvement during the season.
The former Feyenoord star did not hang around for the Championship campaign, though, as he moved to Bournemouth on loan for the 2023/24 term, before joining them on a permanent deal for £20m.
This meant that Leeds made a loss, albeit of only £2m, on the 25-year-old whiz, who did not do enough to help them avoid relegation in the 2022/23 season.
Things could have been different, though, if Victor Orta had been able to sign one of his alternative targets for the left wing position that summer – Cody Gakpo.
Leeds' interest in Cody Gakpo
Marsch confirmed that Leeds wanted to sign the Netherlands international during the summer of 2022 and claimed that Orta had been to meet the family after agreeing personal terms.
The saga dragged on throughout the window, however, and the Whites moved to sign Sinisterra out wide in July, before continuing to pursue Gakpo, who was once described as a “towering” presence by U23 scout Antonio Mango.
Unfortunately, though, the West Yorkshire outfit were never able to get a deal over the line for the PSV star, and it was later revealed that it was because of a hat-trick from the Eredivisie sensation.
In his documentary, Gakpo revealed that he had three options on the table; stay at PSV, move to Southampton, or move to Leeds, on the eve of a clash with Volendam.
The impressive forward told himself that he would have signed for the Saints if he scored once or Leeds if he landed a brace. Instead, he scored a hat-trick to stay with the Dutch side.
One that got away
The transfers that nearly happened but never did. This article is part of Football FanCast's One That Got Away series.
This means that, if the attacker was true to his word, the Whites were within one goal of him deciding to make the move to Elland Road in 2022. Instead, Sinisterra was the only left-sided forward added in the window and Gakpo went on to shine for PSV before joining Liverpool.
Cody Gakpo's current market value
At the time of writing (03/10/2024), the Reds winger now has a current market value of a whopping €55m (£46m) by Transfermarkt, having been in England since the start of last year.
Six months after Leeds were unable to secure a deal to sign the attacker from PSV at the end of the summer transfer window in 2022, Liverpool snapped him up for a fee of at least £35m in January 2023 to bolster Jurgen Klopp’s forward options.
Gakpo produced a staggering nine goals and 12 assists in 14 Eredivisie matches during the first half of that season and hit the ground running in England, with seven goals and three assists in 21 Premier League appearances.
This meant that the Dutchman racked up five more goal contributions than Sinisterra did for Leeds during the 2022/23 Premier League season, despite not moving to the country until the January transfer window.
He followed that up with 16 goals and six assists in all competitions last term for Liverpool, which included eight goals and five assists in the top-flight, which shows that the talented gem can be a reliable scorer in English football.
The 25-year-old, who has been capped 32 times by the Netherlands, was valued at €30m (£22m) by Transfermarkt in 2022 when Leeds were interested in him.
This shows that he has soared in value since the Whites missed out on him, as the forward is now worth over twice as much, and that is why he is one that got away for Orta and Marsch.
Sinisterra was the only left winger they landed instead and the club ultimately made a loss on the Colombian, who was outperformed by Gakpo in the Premier League that season.
80% duels lost: Farke must drop Leeds star to unleash teen titan instead
The Whites central defender endured a difficult night against Norwich City.
1 ByDan EmeryOct 2, 2024