There’s little doubt that Leeds United need to fins a striker, what with the consistency of Kemar Roofe being an issue and some fans not convinced that Tyler Roberts is even real.
The goals of Chris Wood from the 2016/17 campaign were never really replaced and that’s something that worried Leeds United fans last season as Roofe and Pierre-Michel Lasogga spluttered to just 21 between them.
With Roberts looking as likely as Lord Lucan to put in an appearance for the Whites, hopes were turned elsewhere. It all seemed as though Leeds United were going to get some quality in after being linked with the likes of Matej Vydra and Abel Hernandez.
However, Derby County’s Vydra seemed to talk himself out of a deal with the Whites when his rising wage demands were noted. By then talk of a Hernandez deal had fallen by the wayside, many pointing out that it was likely that Marcelo Bielsa simply didn’t want the deal.
However, perhaps a more prosaic reason could be behind the sudden drop in interest – again this being the Uruguayan star’s wage demands. Whilst Vydra’s £50,000-per-week demands may have been ‘eye-watering’, Hernandez’s were enough to fully blind a man.
According to the Yorkshire Evening Post (YEP), not only would Hernandez’s personal demands have dwarfed what Matej Vydra was asking, they simply towered over them. The YEP said that once everything was totted up “including payments and fees” that Leeds United would have been set “back by more than £100,000 a week.”
Hernandez is a free agent at the moment and has spent the weeks since becoming one back in his native Unruguay. During that time there has been little interest in the striker who wants to remain in English football.
At a reported £100,000-per-week then you can’t help but wonder whether there’s a link.
