da brdice： This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
da poker： It’s possible we’re reading too much into this, but you never know, it’s possible that news like this indicates the start of something.
What’s the story?
According to a report in The Sun On Sunday (print edition, Page 65, 20/10), Leeds United are one of a number of clubs in the hunt for Hearts’ 17-year-old left-back Aaron Hickey.
They face some stiff competition though, with Manchester City and QPR both reportedly interested in him as well.
Despite his young age, Hickey has tied down a place in the Hearts starting eleven, having played in all bar one of their games so far this season, the lone exception being when he served a one-game suspension having been sent off on the opening day of the campaign.
An eye on the future?
As we covered in a recent edition of Transfer Focus when discussing Leeds’ pursuit of Billy Gilmour, bringing in a young player presents risks on both sides of the argument.
Either the young one coming in has his path blocked by the elder statesmen of the team, or he slots in and stunts the growth of other academy players coming through.
However, with Hickey only being 17, there’s the argument to be made that he won’t need to be rushed into the first team just yet, thus presenting him with a potential chance in the youth team.
Rather crucially, what this rumour does show is that Marcelo Bielsa is possibly laying the groundwork to be here for a very long time.
Players like Rafa Mujica and Liam McCarron arrived in the summer while giving consistent game time to players such as Jamie Shackleton in the academy gives the impression that he is very much interested in building something at Leeds.
That can also be seen by handing places on the bench to Robbie Gotts and Leif Davis too.
This can only go down as a positive thing. If experienced players were all he was targeting, you could make a case that the Argentine sees this as a three or four-year thing before moving on elsewhere.
Whilst long stints at clubs like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger are rare these days, who’s to say how long the tenure at Elland Road can last?
After all, achieving promotion would certainly help Leeds’ bid to keep him.