Within four days of securing 2022’s Premier League survival, Leeds United were announcing the permanent transfer of Brenden Aaronson. The Whites moved quickly to push through a £24.7m deal they had effectively lined up in the previous January.
It was a prime example of forward planning which was good to go as soon as top-flight status was secure. There was little prospect of a change of ownership at the top of the club, director of football Victor Orta, who engineered the deal, remained in place and head coach Jesse Marsch was only just getting started.
It was a club which had come through a traumatic experience and retained all of its key components for a summer of continuity targeted at righting wrongs. Time has since taught us Andrea Radrizzani and his key personnel did not get that summer right, with relegation confirmed one year and two days after the Aaronson announcement.
Rasmus Kristensen would not follow much later. By June 8, 17 days after the Brentford drama, the Dane would also be confirmed as a Whites addition from Red Bull Salzburg.
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Even Marc Roca, a third senior permanent capture, was confirmed as a Leeds player on June 17 last year, just 26 days after the Hounslow heroics. Twenty-seven days have now passed since the final game of last season and we are still awaiting a new face in the senior ranks.
2022 may have seen three additions by this point last summer, but the world could not be a more different place for the Whites. Patience is paramount across all corners of the Leeds family.
The first 12 days of the impending Championship future were lost to negotiations between Aser Ventures and 49ers Enterprises on a takeover. That could have held up virtually every major decision needed between May 28 and June 9 with signatures needed from the right people at the right times.
Then there is the absence of a director of football entirely. Orta may have had deals like Aaronson’s teed up in January for this summer, but they would have evaporated with him and United's fall into the Championship. Interim football advisor Nick Hammond was only appointed nine days ago.
How can transfers make meaningful progress with the money men quibbling and no dedicated recruitment chief in place? How much can chief executive Angus Kinnear, who by all accounts kept the club moving forward single-handedly through the negotiations, achieve on his own with agents and targets?
All of that is before you even come to the absence of a head coach. Which player is going to commit their future to a recently relegated club with no idea who will be in the dugout, who will be directing football strategy from above or who will even be signing off the cheques at the top of the organisation?
It’s a summer overhaul on a scale not seen in years at Elland Road. With everything changing from the top to the bottom, the knock-on effect is a deep breath before the flurry of ins and outs expected before September 1.
