Victor Orta on Jean-Kevin Augustin, Eddie Nketiah, 8,000 scouting reports and planning for every Leeds United eventuality

Whites director of football Orta and his team are in the information business, creating reports on countless players.

Most will never join United, but some may, at some stage down the line, become a possibility. Jean-Kevin Augustin is one of those.

Orta has known about the Frenchman for years but it was only the recall of Eddie Nketiah by Arsenal at the start of January that opened a vacancy.

The Gunners’ decision stung Marcelo Bielsa, who insisted he made no promises over playing time for the youngster.

Orta too, struggled to understand the recall.

“I completely agree with Marcelo’s opinion,” he said.

“When a big club gives you a player to develop, they need to understand what is the level of development, make a right analysis of this development and then decide. No one made the analysis in Arsenal because at the end they said to us the reason is minutes played.

“Now in his new situation perhaps he’ll have fewer minutes than he played here.”

By the time Nketiah was back in London, a list of strikers had been drawn up at Elland Road. Augustin’s name was second.

But it wasn’t until the latter stages of the window that the status of Augustin’s availability began to change and years of scouting and analysis finally came to fruition with his arrival in Leeds.

“It was really tiring because all the January markets are really difficult,” said Orta, of the window that closes today.

“Normally 10 per cent of the calls you make can hear a possibility, the rest, the other 90 per cent you hear no or impossible, or it’s not happening.

“We were making a list of strikers we consider high level without minutes. Then it is around 10 names. We call any agent or club, asking for availability. He was second on the list and the first yes came in the last two weeks of the market.

“Obviously we know the player from PSG Under 17s, we watched him in Euro Under 19s, we followed the player in RB Leipzig and in our following, we knew it would be difficult for Leeds United but this is the work of our department, trying to have all the information around players who have the quality to play here.

“When you are making this report, are you thinking it’s because the player is available to you in this moment? Obviously not, but you are taking information.

“Another player I signed in Sevilla, Ivan Rakitić, we knew the player for four and a half years. The last year at Schalke 04 didn’t work good for a lot of reasons, the style of the play of his coach wasn’t good for him and then why we made the decision to bring the player, with my boss Monchi, was about the knowledge of the player for four and a half years. The same with Augustin.

“We watched him live in the Under 20s World Cup three years ago and we have one report for each game.

“He was having a tough moment in his loan at Monaco.

“[But] if anyone is telling me I am signing this player because of his minutes in Monaco, they don’t know the work behind the scenes of a signing. Jean-Kevin is here because we analyse and we know the player since he was 17. We followed him.”

The reports Orta was able to bring up on Augustin form a tiny part of a huge database, currently holding 8,080 reports.

He logs into the database and brings up a report on Mansfield Town’s recent 4-3 defeat by Forest Green Rovers, then flicks to a report on SC Freiburg defender Robin Koch, illustrating just how varied and wide reaching his department’s work can be, so that Leeds United both now and in the future are as prepared and knowledgable as they can possibly be, for any eventuality. Even if Orta departs.

“This is the majority of the work, it is not for immediate impact in the squad, in a scouting department,” he said.

“Our main goal is being proactive in creating information, don’t be reactive. Converting information to useful knowledge for my club, that is the key for a scouting department.

“I always try and enrich the work of the head coach because it is difficult for a head coach to follow all the leagues, follow the European Under 21s, follow League Two, second division in Germany, it’s impossible.

“They have a lot of things to do with his team, with the opponent, the day by day, managing 22 people.

“It is not the only goal of the director of football, scouting, but it is one, to have information for the club, the coach, the next head coach or even if I am leaving this club, a database that anyone can put in a player’s name and have, minimum, six or seven reports. This is my goal.

“We have 8,080 reports. In a report about a match you can evaluate six or seven players.

“I’ll give you an example, Koch playing at his level now is really difficult for the Championship, it is another level. But we are always evaluating because perhaps, in a moment, he could be available. Or we could get into another league and then he could be available.

“Our goal is information. Quantity and quality. Quantity is important but much more important is quality information.”

There are no guarantees that any signing, Augustin included, will become a success and Orta, while prepared to accept responsibility for a signing that doesn’t work out, tries to limit the risks of that happening.

“I need to take responsibility, because to say ‘it’s football’ I am a coward. If I use this quote I am a coward.

“I need to take this responsibility, evaluate personally what was my mistake, try to understand what was the failure and then try not to do the same.

“In football to have success with a player you have four points; one is technical and with the tools we have now you minimise the risk, the second is physical and again, with the tools we have you minimise the risk, the third and fourth, it’s more difficult to minimise the risk. The third is transition. Is this player performing in this team, this country or in this league with these team-mates in this situation? Can he make the transition to us and continue performing? It can be intuitive. It’s a question you need to analyse, the style of the team etc. But it’s risky.

"The fourth is more risky, psychological. At the end they are humans. It’s not a formula. We had a player at Sevilla who in four years had two goals and then one year on loan at Levante in the same league, 15 goals.”

Not only are Leeds United's scouting department working on reports of players they may not sign, they're planning for scenarios that may not happen.

Promotion to the Premier League is the club's aim and would be, in Orta's words, the highest moment of his career in the game. He doesn't like to talk about it, evidently still scarred by last season's play-off semi-final heartache. It's unthinkable, to supporters, that with Bielsa at the helm in his second and potentially last crack at escaping the Championship, this won't be the year that they finally celebrate a return to the top flight. It's imperative, however, that the club prepare themselves for every outcome, worst case scenarios included.

"I need to take this responsibility," said Orta.

"It is the reality that we need to make this. But in football normally you work in this line. I remember at Sevilla we worked on a scenario if we qualified for the Champions League and we worked on the scenario where we didn’t qualify. Nobody knows the goals after April or May, the economical situation, if players leave or stay, it depends on all these things."

It's easy to imagine a level of dissatisfaction in carrying out work that may never have an end result. Luckily, for Orta and his team, their employer is involved in a results business.

Every week there is a potential payoff.

"For me winning is the best I can feel," he said.

"Winning gives a lot of happiness to a lot of people and you feel this responsibility."

But there are other rewards for the director of football. He isn't just out to create a promotion-worthy group of players for a head coach. He believes he and chief executive Angus Kinnear have created offices full of Premier League people.

"I feel really proud to create behind the scenes of Leeds United a family," he said.

"A lot of people in the office think I'm crazy. Today is not a good day to talk about this but a lot of times I make games or jokes in the office.

"James, the director of communication, my scouting department, the club secretary, people in marketing. I think Angus, who is key to this, and me, we know that the office can get promotions, that the people behind the scenes can get promotions.

"We need to create the same atmosphere of professionalism that Marcelo creates at Thorp Arch. One of my really proud things is I feel that all the people involved behind the scenes at Leeds United is a family.

"It is the only way to get to the Premier League, it makes me really proud. I am really proud of this. Behind the scenes we are only focused for our goal."