"A bit of a red flag" - Leeds United claim made amid Burnley transfer links | OneFootball

We asked our Leeds United fan pundit about their links with Burnley attacker Mike Tresor

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Mike Tresor's lack of playing time has been labelled a red flag amid reports that Leeds United are interested in signing the Belgian international this month.

It was reported by Alan Nixon that Daniel Farke's side are interested in signing Tresor from Burnley, one of their direct promotion rivals, but there's a potential sticking point with Clarets owner Alan Pace being unwilling to sanction a deal without seeing the 25-year-old in action.

Tresor was signed by Burnley on loan from Genk ahead of their 2023/24 Premier League campaign, and that was made permanent in the summer, but he is yet to feature this season for the Clarets, a strange situation all round.

Burnley paid a huge £15.4million to sign him, but his lack of playing time means they're yet to see the best of him, and Leeds are looking to swoop this month.

We asked our Leeds United fan pundit, Kris Smith, whether he believes Tresor would be a good addition, and he thinks it will depend on what version of the 25-year-old they get if they sign him.

Speaking to Football League World, Kris said: "Leeds definitely need a creator in the January transfer window, so I’m expecting the club to have already put the feelers out on certain signings that they think might be available.

“In the January window, I think it’s more of a case of who’s actually available and then of those players we can sign, who is actually worth signing.

“A lot of the players you can sign in January are available for a reason, whether that’s fitness, playing time or they’re not good enough for the standard needed.

“Looking at Tresor in Belgium, he’d be someone that I’m more than happy to sign, but the fact that he’s been out in the cold at Burnley for months on end is a bit of a red flag to me.

“It would take him a lot of time to get up to speed for what we need in a promotion race, and we’re not really in a position this season where a potentially expensive signing is afforded that time to settle in and get used to what we need.

"If we could guarantee that we’d be seeing the best of Tresor when we sign him, then happy days, but I just don’t think that Burnley would be letting him go on the basis of being good enough for a team like Leeds."

Signing Mike Tresor would be a risky move by Leeds United

Leeds and Burnley are both battling for promotion, so it would be a strange move for Burnley to sell a player to a direct promotion rival if they thought he could make a big impact.

It's fair to say that Tresor's time in English football has been a miserable one, and he's not played all season, so you can understand why the Clarets would want to get rid of him, but they'd surely hope that he's not a success at Leeds.

The Belgian international clearly has talent, otherwise he wouldn't have been capped by his country and commanded a fee of over £15million, but with Leeds needing players that could hit the ground running, his lack of recent playing time makes signing him a risk.

Burnley will be desperate to offload Tresor, but given the eight-figure fee they paid for him in the summer, surely he won't come cheap, and Leeds could be expected to fork out a substantial transfer fee to sign him.