While Jesse Marsch is away on a hard-earned break, Victor Orta is out in Qatar to continue his search for the left-back and centre forward that we need, and a creative midfielder wouldn’t go amiss.

And according to CBS reporter Ben Jacobs we haven’t given up on the idea of signing Belgium’s Charles De Ketelaere, even though the player turned us down in the summer. We offered Club Brugge £25.8million plus add-ons for his signature, impressed by the 18 goals the attacking midfielder scored last season.

But the 21-year-old chose to join AC Milan instead, his head turned by the glamour of the over-hyped Champions League. Yet he hasn’t enjoyed the best of times at the San Siro so far, with no goals and just one assist in his 18 appearances, so Jacobs has suggested on twitter that “Leeds have reached out to Milan to see whether anything is or isn’t possible and they’ve previously been linked with De Ketelaere”.

Given his struggles at Milan there will be a few Leeds fans sceptical of the merits of signing a player who has struggled after leaving the Belgian league for one with a higher standard, but we might get a chance to see him at the highest level at the world cup. He was an unused substitute during Belgium’s 1-0 win over Canada, though if he gets off the bench and does well it might prompt Milan to keep him, or ask for a higher fee if they want to cut their losses.

One of our other summer targets who has captured the headlines is Cody Gakpo, who has scored in both Holland’s games so far, but in his case it’s far less likely that we could land him at the second attempt. The Eindhoven Dagblad have reported that PSV don’t intend to sell him until the summer, and transfer expert Fabrizio Romano says that any move is more likely to be to our old friends at Old Trafford for at least £45 million.

So we have moved on to other options for the striker we need, including Brazilian Pedro Guilherme Abreu dos Santos. Brazilian media outlet Coluna do Fla (via Sport Witness) claim that Victor Orta is keeping a close eye on the 25-year-old, believing that he is the ‘right name’ to sign for Leeds. Pedro has scored 61 goals in 149 appearances for his current club Flamengo, but he could be expensive, as it’s reported the Brazilian mob have an £86m release clause for his signature.

Another name in the frame is Serbian midfielder Sasa Lukic, according to Forza Roma. The 26-year-old scored five goals for Torino in Serie A last season, and is reportedly available for around £12.9 million. His contact doesn’t expire until 2024, but he has indicated that he doesn’t intend to extended. Roma are also interested in his signature, but apparently are unlikely to be able to afford the fee, leaving us in pole position if we want to do the deal.

Left back is of course a position we need to strengthen as well, with Junior Firpo having been something of a disappointment in that role. We’re in pursuit of Valencia’s Jesus Vazquez, a 19-year-old who has made 22 appearances already in all competitions for the La Liga club. Spanish outlet Plaza Deportiva have claimed that we would face competition from Inter for his signature, but the Italian giants would need to make some cash from outgoing transfers before they could afford the fee.

And if we are successful in attracting one or two of these players it’s likely that we might have one or two departures of our own to reduce the numbers in the squad. Mateusz Klich is known to be dissatisfied with being reduced to a role as substitute this season, and we could well prefer to recoup a bit of cash rather than lose him for nothing when his current deal expires in 2024. He was a valuable member of the side that won promotion and established us in the Premier League, but at 32 years old it might well be that his time as a Leeds player is now up.

We won’t know until the new year how any of these moves in the transfer market will pan out, but there’s no doubt that our squad needs a bit of fine-tuning in one or two positions, so we’ll just have to hope that when the next transfer window shuts we’ll have landed all the players that we need.

Reuters

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