You can’t have too many attacking players, that seems to be Marcelo Bielsa’s line of thought this summer.
Reports coming in from FotbollDirekt suggest that Dino Islamovic could be on his way out of Swedish club Östersunds FK, with Englishman Blair Turgott likely to see more minutes for them next season. They also reported back in June that Leeds were interested in Islamovic, and this latest move could be the final piece in the puzzle that sees the 25-year-old move to Elland Road.
Islamovic has already spent some time in England, having been part of the Fulham academy set up for two years. He then moved to Groningen and didn’t have the greatest success there before moving back to his native Sweden with Trelleborgs.
He had a much better time there, particularly in 2016/17 where he scored eight goals and contributed nine assists in the league. That earnt him a move to his current club Östersunds where he’s taken a bit of a step back, with only four goals and two assists in the league last season, taking his total to 15 and 3 overall.
This I think would be a bit of a risky move for Leeds. If he’d produced these kinds of results as a younger prospect, say in his late teens, then there’d be a case for signing him up as a potential man for the future, much like they have done for Raja Mujica.
However, at 25 I’d expect to see a little better return for a centre forward. At his age you’d expect him to be competing for a regular first team spot. With Kemar Roofe and Patrick Bamford contributing 23 league goals between them last season, someone like Islamovic would just be a step back in their attacking arsenal.
That’s not to say they flat out shouldn’t sign him. In the Championship with games coming thick and fast you need as much depth as possible, and being valued at only £720k it wouldn’t represent a huge chunk out of the budget.
He might be able to do a job in cup games against teams lower down the leagues, like Salford City in the first round of the Carabao Cup for instance, however I wouldn’t necessarily put my faith in him being the man to get 25 goals in a season and fire Leeds to promotion.