‘Understood to include…’ – Report delivers update on Leeds offer for ‘striker of the future’
Exciting transfer news broke over the weekend when Gent chairman Ivan De Witte revealed that Leeds United had made an offer for Canada international Jonathan David.
He was quoted in Voetbalkrant saying that he had broken off contact with Lille after rejecting an initial offer from the French side.
Gent value the player at £27m and he said that other sides, including Leeds, had put in better offers.
A follow-up report in the Daily Mail has added some meat to these bones.
It claims that the Lille offer that was rejected was for £23m and that “Leeds initial proposal is understood to include more guaranteed payments”.
It does look like there’s something in this and Leeds fans are excited.
Writing in Belgian outlet Foot magazine, journalist Guillaume Gautier called David “the striker of the future”.
The intro to the piece reads, “He presses. He links up. He dribbles. He shoots. And above all, he scores. The Canadian of Ghent ticks all the boxes of the attacker too complete to be only a scorer. And prompts a single question: why is he so strong?”
He scored 24 goals this season from an xG of just 17.7 [WyScout] – figures that Patrick Bamford dreams of.
In fact, Bamford’s were almost the reverse of this with 16 goals from an xG of almost 27.
David had 98 shots and hit the target with 50% of them. And this is a player who’s only been pushed towards the role of striker towards the end of the season, when he scored five goals in four games.
From the portrait in Foot magazine, David sounds like the perfect Bielsa player. Fellow Gent striker Laurent Depoître has said of him: “He multiplies his efforts without getting tired, he is very fast, he dribbles easily and he has a very good vision of the game. He has all the qualities of a modern striker.”
That sound exciting and it does sound like Leeds are strongly interested, although the offer doesn’t appear to be at the £27m level that Gent want. Yet.
In other Leeds United news, Reliable site leaks images of new Leeds home and away 20/21 Adidas kits