Leeds United and Swansea City are weeks away from learning true winners of £10m deal: View | OneFootball

Leeds United made a big statement to the rest of the Championship when they signed Joel Piroe last summer.

PIroe had been a real asset at Swansea City for two seasons, proving Russell Martin wrong and going on to be an excellent attacking player for the South Wales outfit.

At the start of his time at the Swansea.com Stadium, it looked as though he was going to be working under Steve Cooper, but he left and was replaced by Martin who wanted to take the number nine shirt away from the Dutchman.

Martin said it was up to Piroe to prove him wrong, and that's exactly what the forward did, scoring a high volume of goals during his two campaigns at the club and making the Swans a healthy profit.

Being brought in from PSV back in 2021 for a fee believed to be in the region of £1m, he was sold to Leeds for more than £10m, something that doesn't come as a surprise considering his goalscoring record in Wales.

However, considering the fact he only had one year left on his deal at the time of his departure from the Swansea.com Stadium, it could be argued that Luke Williams' side did a great job to generate as much as they did for him.

Joel Piroe's time at Leeds United

It's been a fairly mixed campaign for Piroe at Elland Road.

He started the campaign as an attacking midfielder and he has also started as a striker at times, but his starting opportunities for the West Yorkshire side have been limited at times, especially recently.

But he has been able to make a real impact in front of goal again, getting into double figures in the league in terms of goals and also scoring twice in the EFL Cup earlier this season.

At 24, the Dutchman is continuing to impress, showing his versatility and also his capability of competing in a team that's looking to secure promotion to the Premier League.

It's no secret that he hasn't started as many games as he probably would have wanted.

But it's not been all bad for Piroe, who is on a nervy, but exciting ride as the Whites look to secure a quick Premier League return.

When you spend more than £10 million on a player, you are ultimately expecting them to play a huge part in guiding you to promotion in the short term.

Piroe was almost certainly brought in to boost the Whites' promotion chances, but with Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton still firmly in the race for an automatic promotion place too, a top-tier return at the end of this season isn't guaranteed.

In fairness to him, he has played a big part in getting extra points on the board for the Whites, scoring in a 4-3 win at Ipswich and also scoring in plenty of other games that Leeds have won by one goal.

With this in mind, Piroe has played a big part in guiding Leeds to where they currently are and the argument could be made that he has provided value for money because of his crucial goals.

If the West Yorkshire side end up winning promotion at the end of the season, it will be worth much more than the £10m+ they forked out on the striker.

And it could then be argued that Leeds have benefitted more from last summer's deal than Swansea, who have struggled without him.

But he has spent a decent chunk of the campaign on the bench and as previously mentioned, the Swans did well to generate a decent amount for him considering he didn't have that much time left on his deal when he departed the Welsh outfit.

His recent lack of game time also needs to be mentioned again and if Leeds don't end up winning promotion at the end of this term, they may not feel as though they have benefitted as much from Piroe's move as his former club has.