Town’s hopes of landing Leeds left-back Leif Davis appear to have suffered a blow with Junior Firpo, the Whites’ first choice in that position, having been ruled out for eight weeks.
The Blues made a £1 million plus top-ups worth £500,000 move for Davis last week but with Leeds head coach Jesse Marsch having been impressed with the 22-year-old, who is currently in Australia on a first-team pre-season tour.
Firpo missed the trip having suffered an injury in last week’s friendly against Blackpool, a problem which will sideline him for up to two months it has emerged.
"He’s most likely out for eight weeks,” Marsch told The Athletic. "We’re hopeful that it’s a little bit faster because Junior healed really, really quickly last time after the MCL injury.”
With Stuart Dallas out until around Christmas with a femoral fracture, Davis is now the only fit out-and-out left-back in the squad.
"We’re looking very closely at Leif Davis and we think he’s done really well,” Marsch continued.
"We have also other solutions, like Pascal [Struijk] and potentially Jack [Harrison]. But in the whole process, we were always evaluating what we would need at that position.
"So obviously this highlights that a little bit more clearly and we have time, we have time.
"When it comes to recruitment, I believe that [sporting director] Victor Orta and [head of scouting] Gaby Ruiz do an incredible job of looking around the world, understanding what the demands of the style of football that the manager wants to play and then providing really good possibilities as to what those players could be and what the fits could be.”
Town have already signed one left-back this summer, former Morecambe man Greg Leigh, however it is expected that they will look to bring in a second before the start of the season.
Speaking at the weekend to BBC Radio Suffolk’s Life’s a Pitch, although not specifically about Davis, CEO Mark Ashton said there can be delays when trying to sign players from Premier League clubs at this point in the summer.
"I think the frustrating thing at the moment is that we’re in this period now where free transfers have gone, Premier League clubs are now back in training, Premier League managers are settling their squads down and whilst you have discussions with clubs about transfers of other players, Premier League clubs have got pre-season tours to fulfil and sometimes they want numbers around for training and technical camps so there’s a bit of almost a time delay in being able to conclude some of these deals,” he explained.
"But I promise you we are still active in the market and I fully expect some more to come in.”
Davis, who spent last season on loan at AFC Bournemouth, has a year left on his Leeds contract.