Yesterday the club announced that we have completed the deal to bring Georginio Rutter to Elland Road, but have we paid a little bit over the odds to secure his signature?

The 20-year-old comes to Leeds from German Bundesliga side TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, and has signed a five-and-a-half year deal, which will take him through to the summer of 2028. The fee is a walloping £35.5 million if certain clauses are met, beating our previous record signing, which was the £27 million we paid for Rodrigo at the start of the 2020/1 season.

The Frenchman began his career with Stade Rennais, making his debut at the age of 18 in September 2020, so he was just in time to be a colleague of Raphinha, before the latter came to Leeds a month later. And the Brazilian was quick to send Rutter a message on hearing that his former team-mate was coming to Leeds, telling him “Congratulations brother. Enjoy this amazing club and amazing city.”

Rutter moved on to Hoffenheim on the final day of 2020/1's mid-season transfer window, and since made 64 appearances in all competitions, scoring 11 goals in the process. He also has 58 junior French caps at various age groups (as a team-mate of Ilian Meslier), but has yet to break into the first team for the World Cup finalists.

He isn’t eligible for Wednesday night’s FA Cup replay with Cardiff, having been signed after the third round began, but could well make his Leeds debut on Sunday against Brentford. He looked very cheerful as he signed on the dotted line in the picture on the official website, and he was saying all the right things in one of the accompanying articles.

“I’m very happy to be here. The Premier League is the best league in football and with Leeds I hope the rest of this season will go good. I will give my energy for the club, I’m very energetic and dribbling is my favourite thing to do on the pitch. Before I came here Illan Meslier told me Leeds was a real family. He said the fans are amazing and he offered me any help I need to settle in”.

“Football is for the fans, they are very important for the club and I want to give energy for the fans in the stadium.” Which all sounds very nice, and he’s certainly highly rated as one of the best dribblers in the Bundesliga. I’m also told there is a YouTube video compilation of his best moments where he looks very impressive.

But one negative comment has come from German football consultant Jasmine Baba, who thinks we have paid a lot more than we needed to for his services. “We have him at [a value of] around 16-20 million euros at the moment, which Leeds are basically doubling,” she told ITV Sport. “It’s a lot over what he’s valued at the moment and that can bring quite an unhealthy expectation to such a young player and could backfire.”

And as well as putting pressure on the young player, the size of the fee will obviously reduce the amount of money the club has available for other signings. And while Radrizzani sent Hoffenheim a message to “Thank you for your management's great effort and cooperation to facilitate the deal”, perhaps the German club were so keen to get the business done because they also thought they were getting more than the player is worth at this stage of his career.

And his less-than-prolific scoring record suggests that he is not the out-and-out centre forward we need in view of Patrick Bamford’s ongoing fitness problems. He can play on either flank and cut inside, and can also create chances for others, but we also have several forward players who operate in such roles, so does he bring us anything different?

At 20 years old he is another one for the future, but we already have problems finding game time for the young strikers we have, with talk of Joffy going out on loan for the rest of the season. Much as I’m in favour of a good youth system, I thought we also needed an experienced striker to get the goals we need to make sure we remain in the Premier League for another season.

Maybe I don’t need to worry and Bamford can maintain his latest comeback as the focal point of the attack while the others play around him, But if we have to rely on his form and fitness for the rest of the current campaign, I’m not convinced that we have the right mix of talents in our forward positions even with this latest signing.

Reuters

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