Leeds United have been linked with young Sheffield Wednesday player George Hirst but could be a bad news for some of their current crop.
According to the Daily Mail, Leeds United will try again to sign Hirst, with the 18-year-old tipped to leave Hillsbrough at the end of the season, but what could the Whites’ move for the youngster mean for some of their current teenage goal-scorers?
After all, Hirst is only going to move to Elland Road if he gets the regular first-team football he has been lacking at the Owls, and that would directly impact some Leeds’ current striking prospect, pushing them further down the pecking order in the process.
Mallik Wilks is a star in the making and will surely make the breakthrough at Leeds once he returns from his loan spell at Accrington Stanley, but the same cannot be said for the likes of Eoghan Stokes and Jack McKay.
Aged 21 and 20 respectively, neither Stokes nor McKay are likely to welcome additional obstacles to their already tough task of securing first-team football at Leeds, and in truth Hirst’s arrival could signal the death knell for both.
The next wave of talent are aged 17 and 18, with the likes of Jack Clark and Samuel Amissah ready to stake claims of their own, and if Hirst joined Wilks at Elland Road, they would surely be the next in line, leaving McKay and Stokes with a battle that could be beyond them.
For now this remains hypothetical, but a free agent of Hirst’s quality and ambition does not come along every day and Leeds would be foolish not to throw their hat into the ring as soon as they can.