Hull City Could Effectively Replace Newcastle Linked Sam Clucas With Either Of These Two Midfielders

Two Replacements For Sam Clucas Who Hull City Can Target

Despite now settling into their pre-season regime with wingers Christian Atsu, Rolando Aarons, Jacob Murphy and Matt Ritchie all fit and raring to go, Newcastle United remain interested in the excellent Sam Clucas of Hull City and a deal to take him back to the Premier League seems imminent.

That being said, despite Clucas’ previous insistence on playing as a winger, he made most of his appearances for the KCOM side last term in central positions – 29 of his starts coming in the middle of the park, and it appears that Rafa Benitez sees Clucas as a player to improve on Jack Colback and the now departed Vurnon Anita, as competition for Isaac Hayden and Jonjo Shelvey.

Should the move happen, Hull would be in receipt of a pretty good transfer fee and may have money to spend.  Given the departure of Tom Huddlestone to Derby too, they may even need both of these two potential replacements:

Ryan Woods (Brentford)

Despite maintaining at least an outside chance of playoff football, Brentford remain permanently open to the prospect of selling their better players and Hull are just the sort of club who may yet have the means to take advantage of such a policy.

Ryan Woods, the Bees’ former Shrewsbury Town midfielder, has been ultra-consistent over the last two seasons since joining, playing 87 times and seems capable of a slight step up the ladder now. It’s hard to say what sort of transfer fee it would take to lure the 23-year-old away from Griffin Park, but it seems like any reasonable offer would be given fair consideration.

Jackson Irvine (Burton Albion)

Both Irvine and his club had excellent seasons last time around in the Championship and the 24-year-old Aussie is definitely on the up.

After an ultimately unsuccessful spell at Celtic, Irvine began climbing the football ladder with good spells at Kilmarnock and Ross County before his move to England and another modest ascension would be appropriate about now.

Irvine would replace Clucas or even Huddlestone perfectly well and probably not for too big a fee, something which is always attractive to the board of a Championship club and especially this one it would seem. Money is tight right now, even after their spell in the Premier League, though Hull cannot afford to aim too low when bringing in replacements and Irvine would seem to provide just the right balance.