No player in the Championship has more assists than Bristol City’s Niclas Eliasson; no wonder he’s being linked with Premier League Burnley.
Bristol City assist-machine Niclas Eliasson is a January transfer target for Premier League Burnley, according to the Times.
Now, it is hard to imagine a player more perfectly suited to Sean Dyche’s Clarets.
A Sweden U21 international who moved to Ashton Gate in 2017 is arguably the best crosser of the ball anywhere in the Championship – a sentence which must be music to the ears of Burnley target men Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood.
An unstoppable attacking force on his day, Eliason managed an astounding 10 assists so far this season, from just nine league starts.
The Times report that it is these sort of statistics that have caught the eye of Burnley, a club who already boast two old-school, touchline-hugging widemen in the shape of Johan Berg Gudmundsson and England U21 star Dwight McNeil.
Eliasson’s incredible improvement over the last few months is testament to Bristol City’s faith in a man who struggled physically when moving to England two years ago. The Swede has been taking judo lessons in order to help him get the better of tough-tackling full-backs and, as reported by Bristol Live, the Robins are set to jump at the chance to extend his current contract by a further 12 months.
On Thursday, Bristol City boss Lee Johnson admitted that Eliasson has the potential to play Premier League football sooner rather than later.
“He’s not the finished article but when Niclas Eliasson is 27 he’s going to be amazing. But that’s where we are. Probably, at 27, unless we’re in the Premier League, there’s a good chance he won’t be here,” Johnson said.
“We have to polish the diamond into a top one and I think he can be.”
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