Leeds and Millers get busy in bid to steal an advantage

A TYPICALLY frenetic summer of transfer business has ended across Yorkshire’s clubs – and the strategies of the two busiest recruiters could not have been more contrasting.
Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino. Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe.Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino. Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe.
Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino. Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe.

For Leeds United, the transfer net of president Massimo Cellino and sporting director Nicola Salerno has been spread far and wide, even to the spiritual home of football in Brazil, with Flamenco play-maker Adryan signing in a season-long deal on Saturday.

All told, United’s ‘League of Nations’ recruitment has seen them sign a Brazilian, Paraguyan, Swiss, Frenchman, Dane, Slovenian and five Italians, alongside four Englishmen with 15 signings arriving at Elland Road in the summer.

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Eight of those have come in since the 2-0 loss at Millwall on the opening-day of the Championship season on August 9.

Do not let it ever be said that Yorkshire football is not multi-cultural, with a Cameroonian, Portuguese, Burundian, Pole, Dutchman, Belgian, Nigerian and four Spaniards among those arriving at clubs in the Broad Acres.

Not that the team most active in the market along with Leeds in Rotherham United have gone down the overseas route, preferring instead to employ home rule.

The Millers’ business largely came at an early juncture, with 11 signings arriving by the end of June, just five weeks after the club were toasting promotion.

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Evans has adopted a ‘horses for courses’ approach to his recruitment, bringing in a plethora of tried and trusted British players including Paul Green, Richard Wood, Frazer Richardson, Matt Derbyshire and Kirk Broadfoot.

The strategy cannot be more different to that at Leeds, who waited until the second week in July to kick-start some significant transfer business with Marco Silvestri coming in followed by Tommaso Bianchi, Souleymane Doukara and then Geatano Berardi.

The £11m sale of Ross McCormack to Fulham on July 8 – the biggest Championship fee paid since Blackburn spent £8m to sign Jordan Rhodes from Huddersfield in August 2012 – has been the catalyst for the spate of incomings since, bolstering Cellino’s hand in the transfer market, which has seen him commit several millions to reinvigorating United’s squad, which looked painfully thin in June.

A £1.6m deal to fund the permanent signing of Catania defender Guiseppe Bellusci has represented the top outlay, with sizeable six-figure sums also seeing Mirco Antenucci, Casper Sloth and Liam Cooper join.

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Aside from Leeds, head-turning incoming deals also arrived at Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough, with the former beating off interest from Rotherham to sign St Johnstone striker Stevie May for £800.000.

It represented a major statement of intent from the Owls and a pleasant surprise to Wednesdayites busy cursing the tardiness of the proposed takeover of the club by Hafiz Mammadov.

Boro chairman Steve Gibson – not for the first time – has loosened the purse strings to enable the club to bring in Spanish striker Kike for £2.7m, with £500,000 spent on Doncaster Rovers left-back James Husband.

The Teessiders have been the biggest spenders across the White Rose, with Adam Clayton also arriving for an undisclosed seven-figure fee from Huddersfield, with their spree part-funded by the sales of Lukas Jutkiewicz and Marvin Emnes.

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Boro’s capture of Clayton saw Jacob Butterfield head the other way to Town, whose other major signings are also well known on the Yorkshire circuit in Lee Peltier and Conor Coady.

Signings in the double-figure bracket have been the order of the day for Barnsley, Bradford City, Sheffield United and York City, while Doncaster Rovers, for the second summer, have been left hamstrung again.

No-one has been more busy in his squad overhaul than Danny Wilson, with over 20 players leaving Oakwell after relegation.

It was the exit of high earner Chris O’Grady to Brighton which gave Wilson priceless room for transfer manoeuvre, with Sam Winnall and Conor Hourihane coming in on six-figure deals.

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For the Blades, the main business has been outward-boundwith Harry Maguire heading to Hull City. Nigel Clough’s main priority in the lead-up to 11pm last night was a forward to sharpen up the Blades goalscoring threat.

For the second summer, Doncaster fans were salivating at the prospect of some marquee recruitment, only to have their hopes dashed again.

Just under 12 months from Sequentia Capital’s takeover stalling, John Ryan and Louis Tomlinson saw their own bid collapse – spelling big ramifications for Paul Dickov once again.

Frugality has been the order of the day, with Rovers – whose first signing didn’t come until July 28 when Nathan Tyson joined – running a tight ship in line with the Financial Fair Play regulations.

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At Bradford, proven League One operators Billy Knott, Gary Liddle and Billy Clarke may have checked in but – as at Rovers, albeit to a lesser extent – the watchword has been prudence, with Phil Parkinson’s quest to supplement his squad at times resembling a bit of a battle.

Let down in the final analysis by a lack of a goals despite a thoroughly commendable 2013-14, York have thrust responsibility onto the shoulders of marquee summer arrival and long-time target Jake Hyde, with the Minstermen paying out compensation to sign him from Barnet.