Leeds United have made Hull City striker Abel Hernandez as their primary transfer target for the summer window, according to a report from the Yorkshire Evening Post.
The player joined Hull in 2014 for £10m and will see his contract with the Tigers expire at the end of next month and has not accepted a new deal offered by the club, which has put several clubs on alert, including the Whites.
Leeds ended the 2017/18 EFL Championship campaign in a disappointing fashion after a brilliant start, finishing 13th in the standings, 15 points behind Derby County who occupied the final playoff spot. The club will be intent on bouncing back strongly next time around and mount a serious promotion bid.
One of the major drawbacks for the Yorkshire based outfit in the recently concluded campaign was their failure to adequately replace star striker Chris Wood in the summer. The New Zealand international left the club to join Burnley in the Premier League, for a fee believed to be £15million.
To replace their leading goalscorer from the 2016/17 season, Leeds brought in German forward Pierre-Michel Lasogga on loan, along with Caleb Ekuban, Pawel Cibicki and Jay-Ray Grot. None of the players managed to fill the vacant boots left by Wood, as they just managed to score 12 goals between them, lesser than half of what Wood had done in the preceding campaign.
Hence, bringing in a new striker with a proven track record is very much of prime importance for the Whites if they are to put up a better fight next time around. Hernandez fits the bill for them to a very large extent.
The 27-year-old joined Hull City in the summer of 2014 from Italian outfit Palermo but did not have the best of debut campaigns in England as he managed just 4 goals in the Premier League, with his club getting relegated to the second tier.
In his first season in the Championship, however, Hernandez turned it around big time, scoring 22 times in 45 games across all competitions, firing the Tigers back to the Premier League once again.
The 2016/17 season in the Premier League followed a similar path to his first campaign though, as Hull went down once again, with the Uruguayan chipping in with just 4 goals.
Back in the Championship, Hernandez spent most of the 2017/18 season out on the sidelines due to an Achilles tendon injury, for which he had to undergo surgery.
However, he still finished the season with decent numbers of 8 goals and 2 assists in 10 games, scoring a goal every 86 minutes in the Championship. Hernandez has also proven his goalscoring prowess on the international stages with Uruguay, netting 11 times in 29 appearances for La Celeste.
Strong in the air and a lethal finisher with his feet, Hernandez possesses a lot of similar traits to former Leeds star, Wood. At 27 years of age, the Uruguayan is entering his best years and has a good amount of experience behind him.
He has a solid goal-scoring record in the Championship to back it up and he will cost nothing if Leeds do sign him, making it a shrewd piece of business for the club. Hernandez could be the one to fire Leeds United to the Premier League.
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