According to the Sun’s chief football reporter Alan Nixon on his personal Twitter account (below), Leeds United boss Paul Heckingbottom is looking at a trio of transfers for next season.
With yesterday’s late 2-1 defeat to South Yorkshire neighbours Sheffield Wednesday pretty much putting the lid on a dismal season, Nixon says that Heckingbottom is already casting one eye towards next season and a trio of transfer targets.
Nixon names Swansea’s Oli McBurnie, and Barnsley duo Joe Williams (on loan from Everton) and Andy Yiadom as the players that Heckingbottom wants to bring to Elland Road as he looks to set out his own roadmap next season. Heckingbottom will know all three players well having had them under his wing at former club Barnsley.
Leeds-born McBurnie, who is on a half-season loan from Premier League Swansea, started his career at Bradford City before making a £300,000-or-so move to the Swans. He’s seen as a future Scotland striker and definitely has goals in him this season – scoring 16 times in 27 games across all clubs and competitions – including six-in-eight for Barnsley in the Sky Bet Championship.
Rated Everton youngster Williams, a former one-time England Under-20 international, is on a season-long loan at Oakwell and has caught the eye in 33 games for the Tykes, despite scoring just the one goal so far this campaign. The likeliest move that Leeds United would make in this instance would be a loan move – one that would extend the youngster’s experience and exposure to first team football.
More fascinating is the situation of 26-year-old London-born right-back Yiadom. His contract at Oakwell runs out at the end of this season, meaning that his signature would be a free transfer. The former Watford youth player joined Barnsley on a free transfer from Barnet in 2016, six years after being released by the Hornets in to non-league football, first with Hayes and Yeading and then with Braintree Town.
Leeds fans will be the first to tell you that the side needs both restructuring and a serious level of investment in quality players. Whether or not they’d be happy with what Alan Nixon says is “in the pipeline” regarding this trio of potential transfer interests remains to be seen.
