Leeds may soon have a deal wrapped up for Georginio Rutter with Hoffenheim taking extreme care of the €40m man, as was exclusively revealed by Christian Falk in his latest briefing with CaughtOffside.
Jesse Marsch’s men have been crying out for offensive reinforcements amid their ongoing struggles with injured stars.
“Leeds’ deal for Georgino Rutter must be really on the way because he’s not allowed to play any matches for Hoffenheim, at training he’s more outside than inside, everyone in Hoffenheim is afraid he could get injured because €40m [£35.5m] would be a huge amount of money for the club – it would be their third-biggest sale,” the BILD reporter wrote.
“And they’ve already got a replacement sorted with Kasper Dolberg.
“I’m looking forward to seeing Rutter in the Premier League, very interesting player, 20 years old.”
The loss of Raphinha to Barcelona certainly had a part to play in the Whites’ loss of attacking prowess given that the Brazilian finished as the side’s top scorer in the English top-flight last term with 11 goals.
To put that into context – and completely overlooking what the forward contributed on the pitch beyond his numbers – this amounted to 26.19% of Leeds’ total Premier League goals in 2021/22.
The improvement in Rodrigo’s numbers (already on 10 league goals – beating his tally of six from the prior campaign) has filled this hole to a certain extent, though it remains clear that the 14th-placed outfit is in need of some offensive reinforcements.
Not boasting ludicrous numbers of his own, the potential addition of Rutter seems a signing designed to sow the seeds of increased team cohesiveness, not to mention aiding the defensive side of Leeds’ game.