United are eager to bolster the squad at Elland Road after finishing an underwhelming 13th in the Championship last season...
According to a brief report in the Sun on Sunday, Leeds United are one of several clubs interested in signing MK Dons' Ousseynou Cissé - with Belgium's Club Brugge and Germany's FC Augsburg also vying for the midfielder's services.
After an abject season in which United failed to secure qualification for the play-offs, the forthcoming summer is anticipated to bring sweeping changes at Elland Road.
A great many supporters have been vituperative in their criticism of Victor Orta, the club's director of football, due to his role in the implementation of what they perceived to be an errant, scattergun approach in the transfer market - and the club's reputed interest in Cissé will hardly render such criticism invalid.
An tall, imposing defensive midfielder also capable of playing in central defence, the versatile 6 ft 5 Cissé is something of a journeyman, having enjoyed a fairly itinerant career to date. The 27-year-old started out in France with Amiens SC, and has since played for fellow French clubs Dijon and Tours in addition to Spain's Rayo Vallecano and Belgium's Waasland-Beveren.
Cissé joined MK Dons last summer from Tours, who had decided against renewing his contract. He soon established himself as an influential figure at Stadium MK, making 36 appearances in his first season in English football, but he could not avert a calamitous relegation to League Two: the Dons' second in three seasons.
Relegation typically results in the departures of key first-team players, and the Dons have already seen Ed Upson, an experienced midfielder, depart for Bristol Rovers; Cissé appears likely to follow him out of the exit door.
If United do capture Cissé, they will likely disappoint the club's expectant supporters in doing so. Although the Mali international, who has won five caps for his country, would offer versatility and physicality, it is plain to see as to why the capture of a League Two midfielder would serve to underwhelm after recent links to Hull City's Abel Hernandez and Swansea City's Kyle Bartley.