'No' - Ex-Leeds United man takes £40m transfer swipe with 49ers take and number 10 'answer'

Bidding less than what Sheffield United paid for Gus Hamer is rubbish basically. That's chancing your arm to see you will get him on the cheap. But in the essence of value money, is Georginio Rutter worth £40m? No. Was he worth £35m? No. But Leeds paid it and Leeds made a profit on him so therein lies a conundrum of what you're getting against what you're actually paying for.

Before Crysencio Summerville put on a first team shirt for Leeds and grew into the player that he did, was there any idea what he could do? No. But while Leeds have come out of the window without a 'number 10', very rarely now do you get a number 10 that just plays as a 10. You get them playing off either side of the pitch and as Leeds have shown you interchange Rutter and Joel Piroe for example for no 9 and no 10 positions

Across what Leeds have got in the building, I think if you're looking at a front four, if that's how you kind of break it down, you're not just looking at one specific position. You're looking at it as a collective and there's more than enough options. There's probably seven or eight players at Leeds that could go into a front four with different permutations. So come away from that with your eyes trained to one particular position and look at it as a collective.

Who you bring in has got to dovetail with who's already there or who's sticking around the place, and bring out not only the best of themselves, but the players around them and compliment the players around them. Now Daniel Farke's job and the conundrum and the question posed is to do that with these players.

He might be openly saying that Leeds were after a number ten or more traditional 10 - but they haven't got it. But they've still spent money and of the money accrued in player sales if you read reports of what was needed if promotion wasn't secured the you basically box £100m to make sure that the financial side of the club is all hunky-dory.

It's reflective of what has been deemed relative success for Leeds. In Rutter, Summerville and Archie Gray you have got three players there that came into the side and all have been sold for profit and two of them in Gray and Summerville for astronomical profit. The other one five million quid give or take.

One of them in Archie Gray is in the very infancy of his career with one Championship season under his belt and the other two didn't really do anything in the Premier League apart from the odd game here and there so the teams that have bought them are taking a bit of a punt. Archie feels like a bit more of a calculated risk, given now the age of him, and also the ability to develop.

But when it comes to replacing those three players - is there such a thing as like for like in football nowadays? I don't think so even though players can have similarities. Largie Ramazani is ostensibly the replacement for Summerville and people will be looking at the fact that there were 50 goal involvements from Summerville and Rutter last season.

If, between these new players, you make up that then happy days. That's how you've got to look at it. That's not me airing on the side of ridiculous positivity. But we'd all like a new striker or a no 10. But getting one for 15 million quid that's gonna score 25 goals? Good luck with that.

There may be frustration but I don't think you can point the finger at Leeds and claim inaction from the ownership point of view. On the one hand, the club has got to be run within the PSR rules which might not make sense come this time next year. It might be a different set of rules but you've got to work within that and keep that side of the boat balanced.

The other side of it is that the organisation that has taken over Leeds United and has put money into Leeds United are as ambitious as the fans. The fans love it in a different way. For the fans, it's there and it will always be there. It's part of them, part of the fibre of what makes these people tick and it's a beautiful thing. But these businessmen are there to get the Premier League because that's all the money is.

So as frustrated as the fans might be, you would think that from a business setting that whoever is heading up and ticking boxes for transfers in and out and recruitment want the best in class, relatively, for what they're doing and what their aspirations are which is to get Leeds back in the Premier League from a division this season where, having looked across the board, Leeds have got to be absolutely backing themselves.

Sunderland have started wonderfully well. We've seen Burnley have a turnover of players. They were a much more well established Premier League side in recent seasons than Leeds but they've had to deal with the same thing so everyone's in the same boat and there's no get out.

Unless you get some magic player in on loan or a free agent which we obviously know at this time of the year probably reflects more on the player hasn't got a club rather than the actual kind of quality of the player, then it's time now to basically just collectively get on with the job in hand which is to get as high up the table as possible.

I can understand people wanting the 49ers to come out and say something after the summer transfer window. I totally understand that. If you're a fan who is there every single week and living and breathing it then I totally get why you'd want that. But what can they say? We sold our three best players because the money involved was astronomical and could not be turned down, what with the release clauses involved.

I don't really understand what else you can explain with that? Nothing. Money talks and Leeds, like 99 per cent of the footballing fraternity in this country are all selling clubs. And with regards to players coming in then as a fan you put your faith and your trust in people striving to get the best that they possibly can and if they're not then they shouldn't be in the job.

I'm not advocating them not coming out and saying something but they are a professional entity and you have to remember what Leeds have tasted in the years away from the Premier League. If you are assuming that they are not moving heaven and earth to get players in then that's a depressing state of mind with regards to how your football club runs.

Broadly speaking, yes, there's been questions about Red Bull and red on the shirts and all that type of stuff. But if the PSR stuff is absolutely right then it's a world away from the shower that was Leeds United in League One and that was climbing back into the Championship, that was looking to establish themselves in the Championship and then to get out of the Championship. It's an absolute world away from that.

That's not to say that trusting what the owners are doing is a straightforward conclusion to take because I've come across football clubs and divisions in football clubs and departments in football clubs where you are literally staggered that this is literally what happens on a day to day basis. There's a facade sometimes that these big, huge corporations run smoothly, when sometimes the reality is scratch, bark and bite.

But I would like to think that from the top down Leeds United have got people in charge or in places that fundamentally know what they're doing although I totally get it.

In this era of transparency where you've got rolling news and everyone's thoughts on the end of a touchpad and the social media sphere of what we deem to be news, we want it every every couple of seconds, don't we? We want an update every few seconds. But I think the window has spoken for itself. The players, quite obviously, that are left have to get on with it, and the ones that have gone that were to varying degrees of success at Leeds, that's them done. It's not about them anymore.