Leeds United are reportedly interested in signing Burnley defender Ben Gibson this summer.
If Leeds are going to be able to pull off what looks to be an incredibly ambitious move for Ben Gibson, then it is likely that Victor Orta will have to pull something special out of the hat to get the centre-back through the Elland Road door this summer.
The Northern Echo claimed this week that the Whites were one of the teams interested in Gibson, with Burnley willing to listen to offers for the Englishman.
With the Clarets preferring to hold onto Gibson rather than take a big hit on the money that they paid last year – a joint club-record £15 million, according to BBC Sport – Leeds appear to have little chance of signing the 26-year-old anyway.
But perhaps, some comments Gibson made to The Sun in September 2017 hint that Orta will have to work even harder to convince the club’s reported target to make a move to Leeds during this window.
Gibson was at Middlesbrough during Orta’s time at the Riverside Stadium. And the defender told The Sun after the club’s relegation from the Premier League – by which time, Orta had already started working at Leeds – that there was a dressing room split, and suggested that that was largely down to the players brought in.
“We all know now it wasn’t a good dressing room – it was broken, there were different agendas in there,” he told The Sun. “It was a really tough time for all individuals and in the end the dressing room was split. There were differences in opinion about different things.
“Obviously the manager [Aitor Karanka] brought a lot of players in, and then there were the people that were there before.”
In fairness to Orta, there really does not appear to be any sort of dressing room split at Leeds. The Whites were sensational under Marcelo Bielsa last season, and there appeared to be more unity amongst the squad than there had been for a long time.
While some of the Spaniard’s decisions in the market probably deserve to be scrutinised, it does appear that he has helped put together a team that has bonded in a way that the Boro ranks perhaps did not.
Nevertheless – if talks do begin at any stage – Gibson may want assurances regarding Orta’s plans should Leeds get promoted as he may be wary that some of the previous mistakes at the Riverside could be repeated.
Leeds getting Gibson already appears to be an almost impossible task. But perhaps his previous comments on life at Middlesbrough hints that Orta has an even tougher job on his hands if he is interested in landing the defender in the final days of the summer window.
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