Tobias Figueiredo has made a big impact at the City Ground since joining Championship giants Nottingham Forest on loan from Sporting Lisbon.
Considering how impressive Tobias Figueiredo has been at Nottingham Forest, Leeds United must be rueing their failure to bring the Portuguese to Elland Road amid their ongoing centre-back issues.
Per Desporto ao Minuto in December, Leeds made an enquiry to sign the 23-year-old but, by the time the January transfer window closed, he had joined Nottingham Forest instead on an initial loan deal.
And it speaks volumes of Figueiredo’s impact that, after just seven Championship games, manager Aitor Karanka is already set to discuss the possibility of turning his temporary deal into a permanent one, as reported by the Nottingham Post.
It is understood that Figueiredo has a purchase option in his contract set at around £1.8 million and, considering just how popular he is with supporters already, paying that rather minimal fee should surely be something of a no-brainer.
Forest’s Achilles heel has been their inability to keep a clean sheet over the last few years, with only rock-bottom Rotherham United conceding more goals last season.
But Figueiredo’s arrival, coupled with Karanka’s pragmatic tactics, appear to have changed that. Forest have kept four clean sheets in Figueiredo’s seven league starts, including in each of the last three against Norwich, Derby and Sheffield United.
So £1.8 million for a player who appears to have solved a problem the club has struggled with for a number of seasons should be one of the easiest decisions Forest will have to make.
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