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Leeds are one of a number of Premier League sides interested in signing Barnsley striker Daryl Dike this summer.

What’s the story?

The 20-year-old has been in fine form since joining the Championship side on loan back in the January transfer window, netting five goals in league games.

According to TEAMtalk, Marcelo Bielsa’s side are among the clubs interested in signing the 20-year-old, with the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea also said to have been impressed.

The report adds that as it stands, it’s Everton who are the most interested in Dike, and that the only way Barnsley would be able to keep the striker on a more permanent basis, is if they earn promotion – they currently lie in fifth in the Championship table.

Tailor-made for the Premier League

Despite being 20, Dike already looks like a real handful as a striker, standing at an imposing 6 foot 2, and bullying Championship defences already.

A player profile done by SBNation noted: “A physical striker, Dike is more than a bruising finisher. His ‘delicate touch’ and high level of technical ability belie his size, enabling a confidence in possession with both passing and dribbling. That said, he scores a lot of goals in a variety of ways. Headed finishes, short-range placement, and long-range bombs, the 6’2” attacker can do it all.”

His teammate Jordan Williams meanwhile said: “Daryl has got a rocket of a right foot. I think he’s similar to Lukaku. He hasn’t scored as many goals yet, but he can hit a ball just as hard. He’s only 20 years of age. It’s amazing.”

Apart from having surprisingly good technical ability for a player of his size, it’s his temperament that has really got some of his former mentors talking.

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His former coach at Virginia, George Gelnovatch, raved: “But one of the things about him that nobody ever talks about is relentlessness. He is a relentless competitor, a ruthless guy on the field. You put that inside a body like his, and it’s pretty impressive.”

Given his natural physical attributes, and the fact he seems to have the perfect mentality, Dike seems tailor-made to succeed in the Premier League.

Bielsa could help Leeds wreak havoc in the top-flight next season by signing the powerful centre-forward this summer.

Meanwhile, Leeds must keep this man at all costs this summer…

Former Hearts and current Bologna youngster Aaron Hickey has failed to rule out a move to Celtic in the future.

Hickey joined Sinisa Mihajlovic’s Bologna in the summer transfer window, but the Scottish youngster has now talked about a potential move to Parkhead and the fact that the Hoops wanted to sign him.

Hickey doesn’t rule out Parkhead move

Hickey was recently talking to Herald Scotland about his situation and the transfer saga in the summer transfer window.

In the interview, Hickey revealed that Celtic indeed tried to sign him last summer but the move didn’t go through as the youngster didn’t think that it was the right step for him. Hickey admitted that he’s a Bhoys fan and the fact that his club was interested in him was ‘massive’ for him.

He also went on to say that he will never rule out a potential move to Parkhead in the near future (via Daily Record).

The youngster said: “Celtic came in a lot and I was excited and happy about it. I don’t know if it was the right option for me, though, because of the deal or something.

“I’m a Celtic supporter and it was massive for me, but I just didn’t think it was the right time to go there. I wouldn’t ever rule it out down the line, who knows.”

The Rossoblu paid a fee of £1.80 million to sign him, around two years after Hickey initially joined Hearts from Celtic as an academy player.

Hickey move would be favourable for Celtic

Hickey has made multiple first-team appearances for Bologna this season, making 12 appearances in all competitions for the Italian outfit. He currently finds himself injured though (as per Transfermarkt).

In the current season, Celtic have had Diego Laxalt and Greg Taylor as their out-and-out left-back options. Laxalt though, is only on loan from Milan and he could return to the San Siro.

This will leave the Hoops with just one out-and-out left-back option. The fact that Taylor hasn’t been a regular this season shows that he might not be their long-term option for that role either.

Because of that, it won’t be a surprise if Celtic move to sign £4.50m-rated Hickey in the future.

In other news, ‘I would question that’ – Pundit drops ‘worry’ for Celtic fans over Eddie Howe – read more here.

Manchester United are eyeing a big-money summer move for Wolves’ Pedro Neto as an alternative to Aston Villa star Jack Grealish.

That’s according to The Sun, who claimed that the Red Devils are weighing up a £50m deal for the 21-year-old, possibly in preference to long-term targets Grealish and Jadon Sancho.

Grealish outperforms Neto

Neto has scored five Premier League goals and provided four assists in 29 games this season. However, Grealish has netted six times in the top flight and has registered a whopping 12 assists in seven fewer games.

The Englishman is valued at £54m by Transfermarkt and is under contract at Villa Park until 2025, so it seems as if the Midlanders are under no pressure to sell their creative maestro.

Transfer Tavern take

Even though Villa seem to be in a strong position regarding Grealish, the news of United’s interest in Neto could please the Villa hierarchy.

However, in saying that, recent reports have claimed Manchester City are at the front of the queue for Grealish’s services.

Dean Smith has seen firsthand in recent weeks how his team struggles without Grealish. It seems as if United are looking at other options, though, and, hopefully their Manchester rivals will soon be doing the same.

In other news: Many Villa fans have been reacting on social media after Gabby Agbonlahor urged the club to sign 24 y/o striker, find out more here.  

According to a report by Foot Mercato, former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino and Lilywhites defender Serge Aurier have been in contact over the possibility of a move to Paris-Saint Germain – with the Ligue 1 giants keen to strengthen at right-back.

Aurier, who has been a regular for Tottenham this season, starting more matches in the Premier League than summer signing Matt Doherty (WhoScored), has just one year left on his current deal – prompting PSG to take note.

Jose could lose Aurier

Foot Mercato even claim that former Spurs favourite Pochettino has been in contact with Aurier over a potential return to the Ligue 1 giants, coming after the 28-year-old openly admitted he would like to end his career at the Parc des Princes.

Tottenham have now even set his asking price, with Daniel Levy demanding around €12 million (£10.2m) if a deal is to be done.

Jose Mourinho, as a result, faces losing Aurier if these contacts evolve into more concrete negotiations – possibly leaving the Portuguese with few right-back options unless Tottenham take to the transfer market.

Transfer Tavern take

Indeed, Pochettino is allegedly keen on signing Aurier for the Parisiens, but it’s clear that the defender could still do a job for Tottenham when called upon.

During his resurgence earlier this season, the Ivorian received widespread media praise, with pundit Kevin Campbell calling him ‘top class’ and insisting Mourinho will be ‘over the moon’ with his form (Football Insider).

Time will tell what comes of this report, but Aurier has an admirer in Pochettino ahead of the summer window.

In other news: Tottenham have been offered a chance to sign this ‘extraordinary’ star, find out more here.

In an exclusive interview with Football FanCast, Steve Bull, who made 13 appearances for England, believes Fabio Silva’s misfortunes in front of goal are down to his long hair after he missed late headers against both Newcastle United and Liverpool in recent weeks.

Wolves bought Silva from FC Porto for £36 million and in 27 appearances he has managed just two goals with the 18-year old getting more minutes than he maybe expected due to Raul Jimenez’s extended spell on the sidelines.

Bull did joke about Silva’s ‘locks’ but admits he believes that is one of the reasons why he struggles with his headers as the ball slides off his long hair and he’s not able to make good contact with the ball.

Speaking on Silva’s struggles in front of goal and if the exposure to a lot of first-team football will be impacting the 18-year old negatively, Bull told FFC exclusively:

“I think the more football and experience he gets, the better it is for him.

“I think if I had him in front of me, the first thing I’d say to him is get your hair cut because when he’s heading the ball it isn’t hitting him directly on his head, it’s hitting him on the side where his hair is and he isn’t getting the power behind it.

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“Seriously, that’s not me being funny. Think when you head a ball at full power it’s off your forehead but when it comes to him, it’s gliding off his locks.

“The amount of time he’s getting I think is good the way Nuno is doing it. I just think that you’ve got to introduce players especially with a big price tag into the team gradually.”

Bull is Wolves’ all-time top scorer with 306 goals so, Silva may feel cutting his hair extreme but he could learn a thing or two from the Wolves legend.

Before he signed for Wolves, Silva had played just 21 games for Porto, finding the net three times so, the Midlands club have put a lot of faith in the striker.

In the end, it turned out to be yet another miserable trip to the capital for Leeds United on Monday night.

Marcelo Bielsa’s side extended their wretched run of results in London with a dismal 2-0 defeat to West Ham in the Premier League, with the Whites now having lost 13 of their last 14 visits to the city.

Goals from Jesse Lingard and Craig Dawson were enough to consign them to a defeat, and while there were a number of poor performers on the night, Mateusz Klich’s shocker really stood out among the rest.

The Poland international’s form in recent weeks surely warranted him being dropped from the starting line-up against the Hammers, but once again, Bielsa chose to place his loyalty and faith in his midfielder.

And boy, was he made to regret that. Klich looked well off the pace in the opening 45 minutes of the contest, winning just one of his seven duels in total, losing 86% – the worst percentage of any Leeds player on the pitch.

There was none of the energy and dynamism on display that we see when Klich is at his absolute best, with the 30-year-old looking a shadow of his former self.

He made just the one tackle and recorded no interceptions, blocks or clearances whatsoever, while he wasn’t even a presence going forward either, with no shots on goal and no dribbles attempted.

The Leeds boss seemed to finally lose patience with him, and ended up hooking him at half-time, with Gjanni Alioski coming on in his place at the break.

And, writing in his post-match player ratings for Leeds Live, Beren Cross noted: “Has looked like a passenger for weeks and again was well off it in the capital. Just seemed totally empty and unable to provide any kind of control or presence in the centre. Overrun by Tomas Soucek and Declan Rice.”

If he needed to be dropped before the game, then there simply cannot be any excuses for Bielsa from not reaching that conclusion after watching Klich’s performance on Monday night against the Hammers.

As Pedro Goncalves gears up for a potential £50m move to one of Europe’s top clubs, Wolves will be living with regret at what could have been.

The Portuguese ace was key man the year Wolves’ U23 side won Premier League 2 but since then, not a huge number of their academy players have been granted regular first-team opportunities. Goncalves only played once, for instance.

One of the fortunate young players to be given their chance is Max Kilman. The former Futsal player has become a valuable option both at left-back and in the centre of defence for Nuno Espirito Santo, but with defensive problems rife this season, he could be searching for new players in the summer.

Wolves may have kept three clean sheets in their last four games, but before that, they had kept just one clean sheet in the league since October.

Though, if Nuno and Jeff Shi do look for other options in the summer, they could do worse than look at their academy; namely Lewis Richards.

The 19-year-old has featured among the substitutes in five Premier League matches without ever earning his senior debut. Yet, that should change in the not too distant future.

Richards earned a new contract with the club last year and has since made promising strides in the U23s, playing nine times in Premier League 2.

He saved what was arguably his best performance of the campaign for a win over Crystal Palace last weekend. A centre-half by trade, he plays very similarly to club captain Conor Coady, and he demonstrated that in the victory against Palace.

Richards claimed an assist for Theo Corbeanu’s goal, a moment the Wolves’ website described as follows: “Lewis Richards channelled his inner Conor Coady with a 40-yard raking ball out of defence and straight to the boot of Corbeanu.” What followed was the winger firing a deflected shot into the back of the net.

Richards is clearly conformable on the ball, and like Coady, he is a technical defender.

After winning the club’s Academy Player of the Year in 2018/19, Kevin Thelwell said: “He’s a very technical player who’s got the ability to pass the ball and start off play and help us to build out from the back, but also then very capable physically.”

Further praise was heaped on Richards after he signed his new contract back in August. Scott Sellars spoke highly of the teenager, commenting: “We try to reward success and he certainly comes under that bracket and deserves it. He’s always had potential. We saw it as a 15-year-old when we took him from Brentford. Now he’s obviously growing up.”

Richards has long been tipped for a bright future and now it’s up to Nuno to extract his immense promise. He likes his defenders to be able to play out from the back so he certainly suits the club’s way of playing.

It surely won’t be too long before we see him earn first-team minutes.

AND in other news, Forget Jota: Wolves should regret losing 14-goal star Rob Edwards called “outstanding”

Former Premier League striker Gabby Agbonlahor believes ex-Huddersfield Town boss David Wagner would be a “poor” choice for Celtic as the club’s next manager.

Wagner to Parkhead?

The American tactician was recently sacked as the boss of Bundesliga side Schalke after going 18 games without a win, which spanned a timeframe of eight months (via ESPN).

Wagner accumulated a points-per-game average of just 1.20 from 40 games in Germany – the worst of his career. While he guided Huddersfield to the Premier League, his record with the Terriers was 1.23 points a game from 154 outings (Transfermarkt).

With Neil Lennon walking away from Parkhead following his unsuccessful pursuit of 10-in-a-row, Agbonlahor urged the Hoops to steer away from Wagner, who was one of the first names to pop up as a target (Daily Record).

When asked by Football Insider whether Wagner would be a good fit for Celtic, he said: “Not really, no. I think he was poor at Huddersfield and had a poor record.

“I think Celtic fans would be angrier at that appointment than Kennedy.

“I think Celtic are going to take their time and wait for the right manager who has got the right vision for the club and a manager who knows he doesn’t have millions to spend and knows he has to get more out of the squad he’s got.”

Transfer Tavern Verdict

Wagner’s record is far from pretty, which makes it difficult to disagree with what Agbonlahor is saying here.

Sky Sports’ Jim White previously suggested that Steve Clarke, Rafael Benitez and Roberto Martinez are all candidates to inherit Lennon’s position. In our view, these three would be better options than Wagner.

With Dominic McKay taking his seat as the club’s new chief executive in the summer, there is huge pressure on his shoulders to select the right man for the job and regain the Scottish Premiership crown at the first time of asking.

In other news, Celtic approach ‘fantastic’ manager as Hoops source emerges.

Liverpool lost against Everton at Anfield for the first time since 1999 at the weekend, but there was controversy, which was, in part, caused by VAR. Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has given his view on the incident.

Halsey speaks out on VAR in Merseyside derby

During the second half, referee Chris Kavanagh awarded a penalty to Everton as he deemed that Trent Alexander-Arnold had fouled Dominic Calvert-Lewi. However, Kavanagh was instructed by VAR Andre Marriner to go to the monitor to check his decision. However, after going over to the monitor for literally a few seconds, he moved away and stuck with the penalty.

A lot of questions have been asked about the time Kavanagh spent at the screen and speaking exclusively to The Transfer Tavern, Halsey discussed that incident:

“We need to hear the conversation between the referee and Stockley Park, we need to know what is going on, because we don’t know, nobody knows, we are just second guessing.

“I think Chris was adamant that he wasn’t going to change his mind, you can tell by his body language and the way he’s got over to that monitor. You can tell he’s thinking “what is this for? This is not a clear and obvious error”. You can tell by his body language as he gets to the screen and as he came away that quickly, you just knew that he was going to stick with his original decision. Full respect to him. We can’t criticise him (for sticking to his guns).”

Halsey identifies a clear issue with VAR

The only people who know how Kavanagh came to his final decision so quickly are himself and the VAR and this leaves fans confused and unsure, which can be very frustrating.

Therefore, as Halsey says, it would be great if we could hear the conversations that the officials have as it would, perhaps, help the clear confusion caused by such incidents.

Liverpool have already felt quite hard done by on many occasions this campaign, and this latest issue will not help them feel any better at all.

When performances are not at their best, which is proven by the fact they have lost their last four games in the division, then it can feel like everything is going against you and it seems like this is happening for The Reds at the moment.

In other news, Klopp and Pep Lijnders are reportedly very impressed with this centre-back.

Brentford star Ivan Toney sent David Moyes a statement during the Bees’ 3-1 win over Reading on Wednesday, as West Ham United’s plans for the striker continue to grow.

According to Eurosport, Hammers chiefs are monitoring Toney’s sensational form in the Championship ahead of a potential swoop for the centre-forward this summer.

The Irons opted against making a quick bid to replace Sebastien Haller in the mid-season market and are instead focused on finding the right long-term option to succeed where the Ivory Coast international could not.

A renewed approach for Sevilla ace Youssef En-Nesyri is seen to be extremely unlikely at this stage, while many other potential options will continue to be explored between now and the end of the season.

This is not the first that West Ham are being linked with Toney, after claims emerged on Deadline Day that the east London outfit hope their willingness to send Winston Reid to west London on loan for the rest of the season would help in any future negotiations.

Toney has been in simply sublime form under Thomas Frank since joining Brentford from Peterborough for an initial £5m last summer, to now be valued at £30m and watched by England scouts.

Few in the Championship are performing at the same level as Toney, who leads the division for goals after taking his tally to 23 for the term at Reading on Wednesday. He also became the second-tier’s leading assist provider with nine, after being involved in Joshua Dasilva’s brace at the Madejski Stadium.

Toney has now turned the ball home seven times and created four goals in his last four league games, with WhoScored match ratings of 9.91, 7.55, 9.23 and 8.23 helping to a seasonal average of 7.55 – the second-best in the second-tier to Cardiff’s Kieffer Moore (7.6).

Toney’s display at Reading sent a clear message to Moyes that he has to be tracked as West Ham weigh up who to invest in come the end of the season, as it is more than obvious that he is too good for the Championship and ready to make the step up to the Premier League.

The attacker, who former England international Darren Bent lauds as a “clinical” finisher, often cut an isolated figure in attack on Wednesday but stayed alive to see that Brentford moved top of the table by nonchalantly chesting a looping cross for Dasilva to score.

Toney soon pounced on a loose ball to fire home himself in the 88th-minute, after Rafael could only parry Sergi Canos’ low effort, and could have bagged a brace to go with his pair of assists were it not for a last-ditch Michael Morrison clearance.

Being starved off the ball in dangerous positions and Morrison intercepting Dasilva’s cross meant Toney could only register one shot at the Madejski, compared to his usual 2.5 a game in the Championship this season.

Yet Toney put Bent’s words into practice to ensure he did not miss his only chance, and sent Moyes and West Ham a clear message as they continue to grow their striker plans.

AND in other news, West Ham will have to pay in excess of £26.5m to land a prolific 18 goal striker in the summer…