Leeds United have reportedly turned down the chance to sign Derby County’s Chris Martin and might not bring in Jordan Hugill from Preston either.
Leeds United fans barely miss an opportunity to remind owner Andrea Radrizzani of the apparent need for a proven Championship striker before the transfer window slams shut.
Replacing last season’s Championship top-scorer Chris Wood was always going to be a difficult task, but Leeds have failed miserably. Pierre-Michel Lasogga’s debut double against Burton Albion was merely a false dawn while Pawel Cibicki, Jay-Roy Grot and Caleb Ekuban do not have a league goal between them.
Radrizzani has been accused of lacking ambition in the transfer market, and a reluctance to put his money where his mouth is, and the events of the last two days could have merely given Leeds fans more ammunition.
According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Leeds were offered the chance to sign Chris Martin on loan from Derby County for the rest of the season but turned him down as he would have broken their rather restrictive wage structure.
And the same paper now states that Leeds are admirers of Preston North End’s Jordan Hugill. But they are unwilling to pay the £8 million needed to secure a striker who has scored 20 Championship goals since the start of 2017/18 and appears to have many of the attributes the Whites are missing in attack.
Maybe Leeds are right to give Martin and Hugill a wide berth. Martin is Derby’s fifth-choice striker and has only one goal all season while Hugill is certainly overpriced.
But if Leeds are to avoid the mistakes of last season, where a failure to invest in January cost them a place in the play-offs, a reluctance to spend big could come back to haunt them in May.
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