Leeds United manager Steve Evans has revealed that the club made four unsuccessful bids during the January transfer window, but stressed that he was unwilling to panic buy towards the end once the moves didn’t bear fruit.

The Whites signed Toumani Diagouraga on a permanent contract from Brentford last month and also secured Mustapha Carayol on a loan deal from Middlesbrough. They also extended Liam Bridcutt’s loan move from Sunderland until the end of the season.




Evans wanted to sign more players, but saw a £300,000 offer rejected by Barnsley for striker Sam Winnall towards the end of the window, which led to a war of words between the Scot and his Tykes counterpart Lee Johnson.

However, the Leeds boss revealed that the failed moved for Winnall was not their only unsuccessful bid of the January window, as he made three more offers for players, which didn’t eventually come off.
 


Evans added that once the players he wanted didn’t come, he was not willing to go on a panic mode towards the last hours of the window just for the sake of signing new names as he was only interested in improving the quality of his squad at Elland Road.

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The Leeds manager told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “Apart from Toumani and Carayol, we made four other bids. That’s all. Winnall you know about because that became public. The others I’m not going to name.

“I said when I took the job that I’d only sign players I want, players who would make us better, so when those four weren’t possible, I left it.

“I’m not going to have a situation where I sign someone and three weeks later people are saying ‘why the hell’s this guy here?’

“It wouldn’t be right. On Monday night Massimo Cellino [Leeds United’s owner] said to me ‘anyone else?’ But I wasn’t going to start coming up with names for the sake of it.”

With the January transfer window shut, Evans will be looking to steer Leeds as close to the playoff spots as possible and look to do the bulk of his business during the summer.