Beren Cross reveals huge behind the scenes Leeds decision, Jesse Marsch will be fuming - opinion

Leeds United were offered the chance to sign Donny van de Beek in the January transfer window.

That’s according to a claim made by Beren Cross, with the Leeds Live journalist revealing in a recent Q&A that the Whites were offered the services of both Manchester United’s Van de Beek and Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Winks this winter, however, Marcelo Bielsa turned both players down.

When asked about Leeds’ January transfer window, Cross said: “In January, players were certainly offered to Bielsa in the form of Van de Beek and Winks, but [Bielsa] declined them. I would say [not signing players] was largely led by Bielsa because of the squad size he likes to retain, but he also maintained he was happy to have new players if they were better than what he already had.”

While it is true that, following his £35m move to Old Trafford back in September of 2020, Van de Beek has somewhat struggled to find any real level of consistency in his performances, it is undeniable that the 24-year-old would have made a fantastic addition to Jesse Marsch’s current options in attacking midfield – particularly following Tyler Roberts’ season-ending hamstring tendon injury.

Indeed, the £22.5m-rated dynamo proved his true ability over 23 Eredivisie appearances during his final season at Ajax back in 2019/20, scoring eight goals, providing five assists and creating six big chances for his teammates, as well as taking an average of 1.9 shots and making 1.8 key passes per game.

These returns saw the £120k-per-week attacker earn a quite astonishing seasonal SofaScore match rating of 7.32, ranking him as the joint 12th-best player in the top-flight of Dutch football that year.

The same season, the Netherlands international was in equally impressive form