OPINION
The answer to Leeds United’s striker conundrum is staring them in the face.
Middlesbrough’s Ashley Fletcher, strongly linked to Leeds in each of the last three transfer windows, is available for to purchase in the next few days.
Garry Monk signed the Manchester United academy product last summer for £6.5million from West Ham and the Mirror has now reported in their live transfer blog (Sunday, 1.03pm) that he wants to quit the Riverside by next Wednesday.
Manager Tony Pulis is said to want to recoup the cash spent on the 22–year-old, while the player is keen on a loan at the very least.
That could be just the ticket for Leeds, who do not have bundles of cash to spend despite the £22million yielded from the sales of Chris Wood and Charlie Taylor last summer.
Norwich, Barnsley and Sunderland are said to be interested in the former Hammers, but Leeds should do their utmost to not only add themselves to that list but blow their Championship rivals out of the water.
Fletcher is a centre-forward of immense potential.
Sure, he is down the pecking order at big-spending Boro, where Britt Assombalonga, Patrick Bamford, Rudy Gestede and Martin Braithwaite are blocking his path to a place in a team overseen by a manager not renowned for his trust in youth.
But Fletcher has many of the weapons that would make him an ideal fit at Leeds, where competition for the spearhead role is limited to hit-and-miss loanee Pierre-Michel Lasogga and Kemar Roofe, who prefers to operate in a deeper role.
The Boro front man is tall, mobile, technically good and has an eye for goal, as he showed when steering Barnsley to the Championship in May 2016.
He can hold the ball up and get behind defences, as well as put away the chances that come his way.
Fletcher could score 10-plus goals for Leeds in the second half of the season if they were to use him properly, and not limit him to occasional cameos.
That sort of return would be enough to catapult United to a play-off spot and the possibility of a stunning return to the Premier League.