Leeds United raided Birmingham City to sign Amari Miller in a move which seemingly left former Whites ace Lee Bowyer frustrated.
Leeds have placed a keen focus on youth recruitment throughout Victor Orta’s time as director of football.
Pascal Struijk has been a great success story but there are also huge hopes for a number of other talents.
Lewis Bate, Sam Greenwood, Joe Gelhardt, Leo Hjelde, Mateo Joseph… the list goes on and on for the Whites.
Others maybe haven’t received as much hype but should still be considered as exciting prospects, such as Amari Miller.
Leeds raided Birmingham for Miller in June 2021, securing the winger’s signature after five first-team games for the Blues.
Miller decided to trade that for the Leeds development ranks, backing himself to become a Premier League player.
That hasn’t happened yet, and Miller hasn’t even made his first-team debut for Leeds as things stand.
The 20-year-old has at least played regularly for Leeds Under-21’s, primarily playing as a left-sided winger.
Bowyer rues Birmingham selling Miller to Leeds
The deal meant Leeds were frustrating one of their former players with Lee Bowyer in charge of Birmingham at the time.
Bowyer was developing Miller gradually but then saw him move on to Elland Road.
Bowyer has now spoken to talkSPORT and discussed the exit of Miller to Leeds.
The former midfielder, as quoted by Leeds Live, admitted that he could saw the potential in Miller almost immediately.
Bowyer wanted to give Miller minutes despite Birmingham being in a relegation battle, and rued that the Blues sold the winger to Leeds so soon into Bowyer’s time in charge.
“Everything I set out to do, I achieved and I did what I said I’d do for the football club. I gave a lot of young players opportunities, 16 and 17 year old kids – QPR at home I had two 17 year olds starting. It might’ve been a bit early, but it’s where we were at at the time,” said Bowyer.
“When we were fighting to stay in the division, there was a young lad there – Amari Miller. He’s a 17-year-old, under difficult circumstances I still gave him a few minutes here and there. I could see the potential he had. That summer we sold him to Leeds, I’d only been there five minutes. They sold him and brought a £1m into the club, or whatever it was,” he added.
The challenge of breaking into the Leeds first team is a difficult one, but Miller has seen another winger force his way in with Crysencio Summerville making a big impact.
Miller must look to emulate the Dutchman in the coming years, with Bowyer clearly believing that he has the potential to be a star.
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