Time will tell whether it pays off, but it’s hard to come away from the transfer window without feeling Leeds United have taken a risk.
Angus Kinnear is an experienced football administrator, Victor Orta is an experienced football recruiter and Marcelo Bielsa is an extremely experienced head coach.
They are all paid sizeable salaries by Andrea Radrizzani to make important, hard decisions in the best interests of Leeds United.
Based on the success of the past three-and-a-half years the Elland Road hierarchy has got credit in the bank and earned the trust of the fan base, but if February does not go well it’s clear where the fingers of worry will be pointed.
As it stands, United have a seven-point cushion to the bottom three and a slim four-point gap to bridge to 10th-placed Leicester City.
Despite that loss to Newcastle United, the table does not cast Leeds in a disastrous light and there are enough points on the board for fans to believe the team will be okay.
That hope will grow with the return of those currently in the treatment room. United’s top brass are putting a great deal of faith on those return dates.
As highly as they rate the younger members of Bielsa’s extended squad, they will know they cannot expect the likes of Crysencio Summerville, Leo Hjelde and Lewis Bate to consistently come off the bench and change Premier League games.
This decision to keep their powder dry in January relies on their squad returning to something like full strength, or even keeping absences down to the four-player average Bielsa ordinarily expects.
This is a squad, when fit, we know can hit mid-table heights.
While Adam Forshaw has already made it clear he will be back for Aston Villa away, if the likes of Junior Firpo, Patrick Bamford and Jamie Shackleton return swiftly, before the longer waits for Liam Cooper and Kalvin Phillips, there should be little dwelling on this barren January.
Their quick returns would make it even clearer why new bodies were not chased harder. January is a difficult time to do business, especially if the players you buy are not considered ready to play by Bielsa until late February or early March.
Of course, an injury-free, experienced player would come straight onto a young bench like United’s, but if Bielsa does not consider them tactically or physically ready to go onto the pitch before the injured stars return, you can see the logic in keeping the money back.
The gamble comes with hoping this unprecedented injury crisis does not continue. Nobody can predict the future, but if players continue to pick up issues at the rate they did in the first half of the season, and Leeds have not reinforced their squad to cope, there are going to be difficult questions to answer.
If the likes of Bate, Hjelde and Summerville are expected to feature week in, week out, it’s a tall order to believe that threadbare squad can deliver mathematical safety long before May arrives.
Even Bielsa has admitted in the past, a young player’s development is only aided by minutes on the field if they are a positive, constructive experience. Seeing matches pass them by or swallowing defeats every other week would not be ideal.
Waiting for the likes of Brenden Aaronson, or other targets, in the summer on more favourable terms is all well and good, providing the next four months play out as well as they did last season.
Putting aside the Newcastle blip, another match Leeds should have won, the reasons for optimism were there in the Burnley and West Ham United victories.
Illan Meslier does provide at least a couple of excellent saves in each match, Diego Llorente and Pascal Struijk are going from strength to strength in defence, Forshaw has been the story of the season, while Raphinha, Jack Harrison and Joe Gelhardt have shown the difference they can make in the final third.
Those six points put a far more appetising spin on the league table, which does put Leeds far enough from harm’s way to believe they will have their chance to regroup and invest in the summer, but the board’s eyes must all be on that treatment room.
