We are yet to secure the futures of Kurt Zouma or Andre Gomes, but Football Insider understand Marcel Brands has his eyes set on the Championship to find our next leading man.
The insider publication are claiming that our Director of Football is showing a keen awareness in Aston Villa’s on-loan striker Tammy Abraham, and has placed the Chelsea-owned youngster on a shortlist of potential signings.
Abraham would easily suit the Brands mould, being a young, hungry footballer, who clearly has bags of potential. However a move would not be cheap, going by reports from the winter, when Wolverhampton Wanderers supposedly set out plans to offer the Pensioners £18million for the 21-year-old hitman.
Wolves later saw a loan effort snubbed by the England U21 international, who already has two senior Three Lions caps to his name, having featured in friendlies against Germany and Brazil in 2017.
He may not have scored against the two World Cup winning nations, but he has found the target 25 times with the Villa Park natives this season, spearheading their assault on the Play-Offs having looked down and out until the end of February.
Villa have now won their last ten Championship games in a row, with Abraham scoring in five of those, and are emerging as one of the favourites to return to the Premier League via the Play-Offs a year after falling short to Fulham at Wembley.
Unfortunately, much like with Zouma, a lot will hinge on Chelsea’s pending transfer ban, with the Stamford Bridge outfit yet to find our whether their two-window suspension will be overturned.
Should it remain in force, the Blues may look to keep Abraham – and Zouma – for next season, and we will have to look elsewhere to strengthen our attack and defence.
One possible striker Brands could look at is Birmingham City’s Che Adams, who was again linked with the Toffees earlier this month, when the 22-year-old was dubbed a ‘potential star in the making’.