At £18 million, Feyenoord’s Luis Sinisterra will become Leeds United’s most expensive ever acquisition from Dutch football. Looking at the players who’s footsteps he’s about to follow in at Elland Road, let’s hope the Feyenoord winger is also the most successful.
Because, with the exception of one Mateusz Klich, Leeds’ track record when it comes to signing players from the Eredivisie is spottier than Jon Travolta’s filmography.
If Klich is Leeds’ Pulp Fiction, then Jay-Roy Grot is Battlefield Earth.
Mateusz Klich – FC Twente, £1.5 million, 2017
A fiery character on and off the pitch, Klich celebrated his fifth year anniversary as a Leeds United player recently. And while his form has dipped over the last 12 months or so, those trademark Twitter digs and promotion-securing strikes have already secured the Poland international a permanent place in the hearts of most if not all Elland Road matchgoers.
“Klich, for me, is a player who can play in all the best teams in the world,” Bielsa said of a man who nailed his number onto the Leeds’ team sheet from the first day the Argentine shuffled through the doors in the summer of 2018.
Jay-Roy Grot – NEC Nijmegen, £1.5 million, 2017
From one of Victor Orta’s most inspired signings to one of his most forgettable. It took Leeds four years to get Jay-Roy Grot off their wage bill and it’s not as if the now-24-year-old forward has done much since leaving to suggest that he was worth persisting with.
After just four goalless games for VFL Osnabruck in the German second tier, Grot was on the move again, joining Viborg in Denmark.
“I learned an awful lot at Leeds,” Grot told De Gerlander, before highlighting the role an ill-timed injury played in his inability to make an impact in West Yorkshire.
“I left home for the first time after my breakthrough at NEC, went to live on my own in a foreign country, with a different language.”
To Grot, his stint at Leeds was far from a ‘failed adventure’. You won’t find many who will agree with that assessment.
Jordan Botaka – Excelsior, £1 million, 2015
Nicknamed ‘The Wizard’ upon his arrival back in 2015, Botaka was hardly spellbinding at Leeds. In fact, his only trick was to make the reputation he carefully cultivated in the Netherlands disappear in a push of smoke and anonymous cameo appearances.
The Congo international didn’t exactly set the world alight on loan at Charlton Athletic either. Now 29, Botaka is contracted to KAA Gent but has spent much of the last few seasons away from the Ghelamco Arena.
Mika Vayrynen – Heerenveen, free transfer, 2011
Hopes were high when Simon Grayson’s Leeds snapped up a midfielder with 50 international caps on his CV. The fact that his contract was torn up less than 12 injury-hit months later tells it’s own story.
Then again, what did Leeds expect? It’s not as if 29-year-old arrived with a spotless fitness record after all.
Now 40, Vayrynen retired back in 2017.
Clyde Wijnhard – Willem II, £1.5 million, 1998
Few will remember the role Wijnhard played in the meteoric rise of one Alan Smith at Elland Road. It was Wijnhard who was sacrificed in place of Smith as the baby-faced 18-year-old scored with his first touch in a famous 3-1 win over Liverpool, setting Leeds on their way to a fourth-place finish and Champions League qualification. Oh to have those heady days back.
Overshadowed by Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, Wijnhard managed just three goals in 18 matches before moving down the road to Huddersfield. Leeds even took a 50 per cent loss on a striker who set them back £1.5 million.
In fact, Wijnhard’s most prolific campaign in English football came in the fourth-tier with Darlington.
Robert Molenaar – FC Volendam, £1 million, 1997
Like Vayrynen, fitness problems dogged Molenaar’s spell in Yorkshire. The Dutch defender joined Bradford City shortly after suffering a serious ligament injury against Arsenal in 1999.
Now a manager, Molenaar was appointed the new head coach of NAC Breda in June, via Algemeen Dagblad.
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