Well at least this gives us a little bit more insight.
Leeds United’s director of football Victor has talked about how the club were forced to look heavily at loan deals because of Financial Fair Play rules.
Speaking to Offthepitch.com, he went into detail about how the club approached the summer:
“With the rules of financial fair play we cannot afford a permanent transfer, but we are really happy if you can make good loans it can be a good strategy. And in the past a lot of teams have been promoted with a good loan policy. It’s true that now this year, the new regulations with the Championship’s FFP were really restrictive. We were going to have loans to make an immediate impact and to really try and reinforce the team… with the goal of promotion”
Now I’m not going to go into the irony of him talking about loans making an immediate impact when you have someone like Jack Clarke who is struggling to get into the first team because the team has so many loans, however I will talk about one loan that stands out above the rest, and that’s Helder Costas’.
Costa joined the club in the summer one an initial one-year loan which will become permanent next summer.
Why could we not have done the same with the likes of Ben White, who has fitted in nicely enough to be crowned PFA Fans Player Of The Month. Or, having started off incredibly well, why not work out a similar deal for Eddie Nketiah?
If the club is so confident of promotion, then why did they not negotiate for more of these deals where we loan them now with an obligation to pay next season? It would have been a great way of keeping most of the squad together without having to go through the of negotiating twice.
What about you? Do you think that Leeds were right to do what they did with Costa? Would you have liked to see the idea implemented with more players? Or do you think that would have been a step too far?