Insignificant as it may seem with Jesse Marsch hanging onto his job by his fingernails and Leeds United bearing down on three final chances for momentum before the World Cup, the January transfer window cannot be ignored. Whether it’s alongside Marsch or not, Victor Orta has work to do.
United’s head coach going into January is integral to the business Orta does, but whether Marsch recovers from his precarious current position or he is replaced, the director of football knows this squad needs strengthening. A positive start has given way to an eight-match winless run which has put the Whites in the bottom three and at real peril of relegation if nothing changes.
Marsch will look to bring about that change to the best of his ability on the training ground, but Leeds cannot afford to be inactive in the next transfer window on this evidence. At the start of this year, Leeds were on a run of two wins in 11 matches with a squad so savaged by injury and Covid they named Kris Moore, Liam McCarron, Jack Jenkins, Nohan Kenneh and Archie Gray among their substitutes in the Premier League.
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Yet still, Orta did not sign a single player in January. The likes of Donny van de Beek and Harry Winks were offered, but declined by the club. Leeds would later sack Marcelo Bielsa and then stay up by the skin of their teeth on the final day of the season.
Marsch publicly acknowledged Leeds were hunting left-backs and strikers in the summer, but the only addition made after those comments was 18-year-old Wilfried Gnonto. Junior Firpo’s fitness issues and poor form have forced more from Pascal Struijk at left-back than anyone would have wanted in the summer.
Meanwhile, Rodrigo and Patrick Bamford have traded their own injury issues, with no concerted run of form in front of goal apart from the former’s opening four-goal burst. United have to plug those gaps, whoever the head coach is.
Orta knows every signing he makes can either boost or damage his reputation. The summer signings he did complete have been largely successful and he deserves credit for that, but there is no ignoring the fact Marsch is his man and his appointment at head coach.
If it does not work out for the American, he follows the failures of Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbottom. Bielsa remains the outlier in this pattern of appointments.
January can be a time of redemption for Orta if he can secure the signings Leeds badly need in this fight against relegation. It will be a decisive window for United in dictating the momentum this group takes into summer 2023.
It will be a critical month in deciding whether Leeds have the players to stay up or not, but also in laying the groundwork for how Orta wants to conduct business the following summer. A whole host of senior names will enter the final 12 months of their respective contracts next July, assuming they don’t sign new terms between now and then, and big decisions will be needed on whether they are transferred out or kept on.
January will go some way to determining next summer’s league status and how the next evolution of this squad looks.
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