Leeds United were one of the busier Premier League clubs over the course of the summer transfer window, with Victor Orta bringing in no less than eight new additions to Jesse Marsch’s first-team squad, as well as strengthening the Whites’ U23 side with the signing of Sonny Perkins on a free transfer.
However, one player Leeds’ director of football was reported to be interested in a €12m (£10m) move for and ultimately missed out on was Ajax central midfielder Mohammed Kudus, something that, considering his impressive so far this season, appears to have been a big mistake by the Spaniard.
Indeed, over his six Eredivisie appearances – only one of which has come as a start – so far this season, the £9m-rated talent has been in sensational form, scoring three goals, as well as taking an average of one shot – 0.7 of which have hit the target – completing 2.0 dribbles and winning 2.6 duels – at a success rate of 61% – per game.
These returns have seen the £14k-per-week Ghana international average an extremely impressive SofaScore match rating of 7.22, ranking him as Alfred Schreuder’s 11th-best performer in the top flight of Dutch football.
However, it was during De Godenzonen’s 4-0 Champions League demolition of Glasgow Rangers last week in which the 22-year-old proved his undoubted ability, completing five of his six attempted dribbles, being successful with all of his attempted 27 passes, winning five of his eight duels, setting Steven Berghuis up for his side’s second of the game and – putting the icing on the cake – scoring a spectacular solo goal of his own to give Ajax a 3-0 lead.
These metrics saw the player who Erik ten Hag dubbed “incredible” and Owuraku Ampofo dubbed “special” earn a simply sensational SofaScore match rating of 8.2 – ranking him as the second-best performer in the fixture.
As such, considering how exciting a talent Kudus very much appears to be, in addition to the midfielder reportedly being available for an extremely reasonable £10m this summer, it would indeed appear as if Orta had something of a nightmare in not pushing overly hard for the Ghanaian’s signing – as he would very much look to be an incredible addition for the Whites.