Man City centre-back mentioned to Phil Hay as back-up option if Leeds can’t re-sign Ben White
The Athletic journalist Phil Hay has revealed that Manchester City centre-back Taylor Harwood-Bellis is someone who’s been mentioned as a potential Leeds United target this summer.
Hay was asked who Leeds have in mind to add to their defence this summer if they cannot re-sign Ben White.
Although Leeds are dead set on landing the 22-year-old, it seems that Harwood-Bellis, 18, is also someone on the Whites’ radar.
Writing on The Athletic website, Hay said: “One player who was mentioned to me this week was 18-year-old Taylor Harwood-Bellis at Manchester City, although I can’t say if Leeds would actually go for him.
“In our sensible transfers piece, we picked out two defenders at Swansea this season — Ben Wilmot and Ben Cabagno — as options whose attributes on paper draw reasonable comparisons to White’s.
“But when you speak to Leeds, they’re only talking about White. They’re going to try to make that happen.”
It is no surprise that Leeds have their sights firmly on re-signing White after he did so well on loan at Elland Road last season.
Leeds have to sign at least one new centre-back this summer to replace White – if they cannot re-sign the man himself – and think about someone who might be able to fill the boots of Gaetano Berardi, who seriously injured his knee last month.
However, Hay added that “Bielsa only wants one centre-back” in his latest piece on The Athletic website and that could worry some fans.
Bielsa does like to have a small squad of senior players but do we really want to go into next season with just two centre-back options?
Pascal Struijk may be called upon to step up but he’s very inexperienced despite a few impressive displays at the back-end of last season.
In other Leeds United news, Bielsa believes this striker will take the Premier League by storm if Leeds sign him.