Leeds United have mostly had their act together since appointing Garry Monk as manager in 2016.
Challenging for at least the play-offs in three of the last four seasons, the club has gone from the chaos of Massimo Cellino’s ownership to the relative calm of Andrea Radrizzani’s guidance.
In terms of recruitment, things have taken a rapid upturn to build the squad that Marcelo Bielsa has pushing for a first-place finish in the Championship, but that’s not to say there haven’t been a few eyebrow-raisers in amongst the successes.
Here are seven of the downright strangest Leeds transfers since 2016.
Guillermo Amor
Guillermo Amor senior, a Barcelona legend who made over 300 appearances and their ‘director of institutional relations’, saw his son move to Leeds on a free transfer and two-year deal last summer.
His father scored a late winner for Spain against Romania at Elland Road during Euro 96, but Amor junior won’t emulate him after only a short-lived spell in which he made no discernible impact.
Midway through the season he was back in Spain, having moved on another free transfer to Getafe to continue his development with their youth team.
Izzy Brown
The Chelsea loanee showed his potential as a big part of the Huddersfield side that got promoted in 2017, but after suffering a knee ligament injury with Brighton, his time at Elland Road amounted to little more than part of his comeback.
Dedicated supporters will have seen him regularly feature for Carlos Corberan’s Under-23s, but his time with the senior side amounted to just two substitute appearances, the second of which was a desperate roll of the dice as Bielsa looked to salvage the play-off semi-final against Derby.
Ouasim Bouy
You can take your pick of options from Victor Orta’s first season as sporting director, the great splurge of 2017-18 in which no fewer than 25 players joined Leeds, but as the dust has settled one name stands out as the strangest and costliest mistake of all.
Originally joining from Juventus, it’s safe to say Dutch youth international Bouy didn’t live up to what might have been expected of him and he’s never appeared for the club.
The past year has seen the club do well to trim the fat and offload dispensable figures such as Pawel Cibicki and Vernon Anita, but contracted until 2021 there’s been no such luck with Bouy who remains collecting his wages.
Yosuke Ideguchi
Ideguchi will surely regret his ill-fated move to Leeds midway through the 2017-18 season, said to have cost him a spot in Japan’s squad for that summer’s World Cup.
He trained with Leeds during Marcelo Bielsa’s first pre-season as manager, but he could only disappoint Japanese journalists that enquired whether the once highly-rated prospect had a future under him.
Suffering with injuries and seeing loans at Cultural Leonesa and Greuther Fürth not amount to a great deal, he eventually rejoined boyhood club Gamba Osaka in the summer of 2019.
Pierre-Michel Lasogga
The Hamburg cult figure evidently had something about him, underlined by his respectable 10 goals from 31 appearances during the 2017-18 season.
But it’s hard to think of a difference as marked as seeing him amble about leading the line under Paul Heckingbottom’s shapeless side and Bielsa’s ultra-fit, ultra-drilled team a few short months later. Plus there’s that reality TV career, what was all that about?
Billy Whitehouse
His one and only appearance for Leeds was in the FA Cup exit to Sutton United, he’s now representing non-league Spennymoor Town.
Questions to be asked over how and why he was ever with Leeds.
Dario Meadows
Red tape denied Kent-born Italy Under-20 star Meadows from ever joining up with Leeds, in spite of the club sealing a deal from Roma back in 2016.
He retired as a professional footballer a couple of years later without ever making it at a senior level, and now seems to be plying his trade as a Soundcloud rapper.
