Of all the signings completed by Leeds United last season, Georginio Rutter’s was the most complicated.
His move from German club Hoffenheim — for around £30million ($37m) — broke Leeds’ transfer record but still, the wheels turned more slowly than they should have done.
Rutter’s agents were in England for a week before contracts were signed. Rutter had arranged a celebratory meal with his family for the end of that week and in the hours before he was finally unveiled, at around 9pm on a Saturday, it was agreed all round that the dragging of heels had gone on long enough.
At Elland Road, there was a difference of opinion about how the transfer might be structured.
Andrea Radrizzani, Leeds’ then chairman, had floated the idea of taking Rutter on loan with an obligation to sign him permanently.
As it was January, any obligation would be set for the end of the season (and, presumably, dependent on Leeds surviving in the Premier League). But Radrizzani was in his final throes as majority shareholder and 49ers Enterprises, the minority group poised to buy him out, was not inclined to kick a long-term move — or responsibility for Rutter’s fee — down the road. Radrizzani might be gone by then. The Americans insisted the loan option was shelved and a permanent deal be completed immediately.
With that, Rutter took up a five-and-a-half-year contract for the most expensive price tag Leeds have ever met. And in the months that followed, they and their fans waited for a day like Saturday, when the sense of their willingness to go so big on the then-20-year-old forward became clearer.
It was not that Rutter came to England with no reputation or that clips of him showed no trickery or flair. Sam Allardyce, who took charge of Leeds’ final four games as they were relegated in May, told the club’s hierarchy that though there was a lot to like about Rutter, the Frenchman’s flagging confidence meant he could do very little with him in such a short space of time. At that point, Rutter had played fewer than 300 minutes in the league for the club and started just once.
In short, he was another representation of Leeds getting it wrong; of Leeds misjudging what it took to stay in the Premier League.
While he joined on Jesse Marsch’s watch, the signing of Rutter was recommended and pushed by Victor Orta, the director of football at the time. Marsch had been more inclined to go for someone such as Wolves’ Hwang Hee-chan, a striker he worked with for two seasons previously at Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg and German club RB Leipzig. Rutter had a good reputation in Europe and was showing potential in the Bundesliga, giving him a high valuation. But in that January window, Leeds were crying out for immediate impact and goals.
In the wake of relegation, though, Rutter’s stock was underlined when they received a phone call from Germany, from an intermediary representing Borussia Dortmund.
They were told that Dortmund liked Rutter, were considering bidding for him, and had the budget to make a transfer happen. The agent had been asked to sound Leeds out to see if Rutter, like so many of their relegated squad, was now available and minded to move on. Leeds’ answer on both counts was no.
Georginio Rutter, right, celebrates with Joel Piroe (Tim Markland/PA Images via Getty Images)
At the very start of the summer, as Leeds — minus a manager/head coach — tried to make preliminary decisions about which of their players would leave or stay, Rutter was included on the list of those they hoped to keep. His contract did not include a relegation release clause allowing him to leave on loan, the bane of Leeds’ existence through the last window, and the club got to the start of pre-season without the player giving any indication that he was unhappy or uncommitted.
By the time Dortmund’s interest was mooted, Daniel Farke had been appointed manager and asked Leeds to reject interest in Rutter. In any case, Dortmund’s valuation of just over £20million was lower than the amount they paid Hoffenheim for him in January and Leeds did not want a loss in their accounts to adversely affect their financial fair play (FFP) position.
As Farke saw it, Rutter was motivated to stick around by the difficulty of his first six months at Elland Road. He had cost a record fee, eclipsing the £27million paid for Rodrigo in 2020, but was yet to show why.
“I was hoping that it would work out,” Farke said recently. “There was lots of interest in him, big names all over Europe, but he was quite committed anyhow. I got the feeling that although he had a tough start to life at this club, he was still saying, ‘OK, there’s so much more in it and I want to prove my worth and pay something back’. He saw (staying as) the best way to do this.”
What people would see, Farke predicted, was that “the quality was there over the long-term period”. That was Orta’s opinion of him too, though the flaw in the plan to sign him at the turn of the year was that Leeds did not have the luxury of thinking long-term in January.
But by moving down a division to the Championship, Rutter has had the benefit of being made to look a cut above technically.
He had already scored twice before Saturday, at Ipswich Town and away to Millwall, and had missed some good chances too, but his skill in open play against Watford was cheat-code stuff: a pirouette to escape his markers on the touchline in the first half, a backheel on halfway that turned a dead end into a counter-attack and, above all, the jinking run and defence-scything pass that set Jaidon Anthony away for Leeds’ third goal. Rutter got his own standing ovation at full-time.
🌭 Want ketchup with that hot dog? pic.twitter.com/CeBaUMfjuH
— Leeds United (@LUFC) September 24, 2023
Farke could not help but praise his performance and made a beeline to speak to Rutter on the pitch, but Leeds’ manager is not giving gold stars out easily this season.
He revealed he had criticised the France Under-21 international in the dressing room at half-time for missing a simple early chance and explained he had talked to Rutter to tell him that his tricks and invention should not be allowed to stray into arrogance or disrespect. “I’ve already spoken about this situation, saying, ‘Make sure it is not over the line, don’t embarrass the opponent’, because they are also proper players,” Farke said. “‘Don’t do some crazy things’.”
Life, as ever, moves fast in football. One moment you are listening to people talking in baffled tones about the scale of your transfer fee. The next, you are being told your ability runs the risk of you being seen to be taking the p*** out of the opponents.
The mix of January, Leeds and Rutter was wrong time, wrong place, wrong player. But now, in a different division with cleaner, fresher air around him, he is promising to see them right.
(Top photo: Ben Roberts Photo/Getty Images)
