he current names in the frame are West Ham United striker Ashley Fletcher and Norwich City winger Sergi Canos.
Garry Monk has told the Yorkshire Post that although we’ve had a good run in the last few months, he would still like to fine-tune his squad during the current transfer window. "Nothing’s imminent but the club are working very hard on making sure we can get one or two through the door. It’s to help the squad. I’m very happy with this squad and proud to be working with these players. It’s something I want to do to help them and they understand that.”
Ashley Fletcher is still said to be one of the head coach’s current targets (as he has been for quite some time) but it’s thought that the Hammers are unlikely to let him go out on loan for the rest of the season unless they can bring another striker into their squad.
The YEP have also reported that Leeds are looking at the possibility of taking 19-year-old Sergi Canos on loan, with a view to a permanent deal in the summer. Canos is Spanish, but came to Liverpool with his family when he was 16. His Anfield career consisted of only one substitute appearance in the first team, but he played 38 games for Brentford while on loan for the whole of last season.
In the summer he moved to Norwich for £2.5m, yet has made only three league appearances for the Canaries, plus one in the league cup. So it’s not surprising that Alex Neil is looking to offload Canos to raise funds to strengthen his squad elsewhere, but if Leeds do want to move for the player, we will face competition from Brentford, who are keen to take him back to Griffin Park.
I’m a bit surprised by the interest in Canos, partly because I’m not convinced that another winger should be one of our highest priorities, with Dallas and Sacko in the squad already. Plus I can’t help thinking that if he can’t get into a Norwich side that are slipping down the table, he can’t really be good enough to help our promotion challenge. But with Canos still a few weeks short of his 20th birthday he has time to improve, so we might be signing him as one for the future.
Garry Monk is also looking to save on the current wage bill to help to fund his targets, and we are still trying to reach a deal with Rotherham for them to take Toumani Diagouraga. The talks have hit some sort of snag (not specified by the paper) but we may yet be able to strike a deal with the Millers by the end of January.