Leeds United academy graduate linked with Tottenham Hotspur loan exit as reunion mooted

Orta was the director of football at Elland Road as Gray made his swift ascent through the youth ranks of his boyhood club.

Neither are on the books in West Yorkshire anymore, with Orta leaving before Gray’s first-team breakthrough in 2023.

Gray left a year later, securing a move to the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur following Leeds’ failure to escape the Championship.

According to Spanish outlet Mucho Deporte, Orta’s current club Sevilla have started work on a potential loan arrangement.

Tottenham are highly unlikely to sanction a permanent exit, but a loan switch could prove beneficial for Gray given his current status within the Spurs squad.

His is still waiting on his first Premier League start, having tallied 33 minutes of action over the course of four substitute appearances. In contrast, he made 40 starts for Leeds during the last regular Championship season.

Orta has previously waxed lyrical about Gray, who is still just only 18 years old. In 2021, he spoke glowingly about the prodigy in an interview with La Media Inglesa.

He said: "He’s one of those players you see every, I don’t know. I remember Kun Agüero and saying ‘what is this?’. It’s something that happens once in a long time, so I wanted to mention Archie Gray.

"[It] has actually happened only a few times, in the South America under-20s tournament, Kun scored 10 or 12 goals or something like that, you could see he was different. I saw Ángel Correa in under-15s in San Lorenzo and it impacted me.

“I saw Douglas Costa when he was 15 in a Copinha São Paolo and I said 'who’s this guy?'. It’s happened only a few times. But yeah, Archie gives me the same feeling. Archie, the other day against Tranmere Rovers, gave me that feeling."