Leeds United evidently want to bolster their midfield options this summer.

The Whites have been in hot pursuit of Southampton’s Shea Charles, having had multiple bids rejected already for the 22-year-old.

As it stands, a bid of £23million plus add-ons is the latest offer tabled by Leeds for the Northern Ireland international.

Leeds also recently found themselves linked with another midfielder, Mandela Keita, with negotiations already underway, according to reports in Italy. Now, Graham Smyth has provided the latest update on Leeds and Keita.

Graham Smyth shoots down possible Mandela Keita signing

The links with Keita did seemingly come out of nowhere. Also, when reports from Italy suggested we were in talks for Keita for around £25million, it all felt a little premature.

Naturally, the Keita news was a big talking point on social media with Leeds fans. However, Smyth quickly replied to a thread on X discussing the deal.

Smyth wrote, “There’s nothing in it”, regarding Keita’s potential move to Leeds.

Whilst I expected us to be potentially looking at alternative targets to Charles, I never expected the 49ers to be in active negotiations yet for these alternatives. So, Smyth’s latest update came as no surprise, really.

Perhaps the fact that we are not actively pursuing Keita is a sign from the 49ers that they are confident of sealing the deal with Southampton for Charles.

Perhaps they feel as though they do not need to look elsewhere for midfield reinforcements.

Leeds United need clarity on Shea Charles situation

Sooner rather than later, we need this Charles transfer saga to be over.

The sooner it is, the better, as it means we can move on to signing alternative targets in other positions.

I still stand by the point that I think we have areas in our squad that need to be addressed far more urgently than the midfield department.

But until we know what is happening with Charles, it makes approaching other targets trickier, as we don’t know how much of our budget we have left.

We desperately need a new goalkeeper and left-sided centre-back. On top of this, we ideally need more depth at left back, left-centre back and maybe even up top or out on the wing too.

So in order to plug as many of these gaps as possible before the transfer window slams shut, we need to strike a deal with Southampton for Charles, or walk away and look at alternative solutions.

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