"Surprising" - Assessment of Leeds United transfer claim involving Joel Piroe and Che Adams | OneFootball

Leeds United are reportedly interested in signing Southampton forward Che Adams, who scored 16 Championship goals for the Saints during the 2023/24 regular season, helping Russell Martin's men land a play-off spot.

That's according to TeamTalk, who also revealed that the Whites are looking to offload Joel Piroe, who the club signed from Swansea City last summer, if they win promotion through the play-offs.

Daniel Farke's men finished third in the Championship table, and played stellar football at times. They have secured their place in the play-off final on May 26th, with Piroe scoring in Thursday night's 4-0 demolition of Norwich City - his 14th goal of the season, despite playing second fiddle to Patrick Bamford for much of 2024.

Undoubtedly, this is a decent return from the former Swans man, but during the 2022/23 season, he was able to bag 19 Championship goals for the South Wales outfit, who he also scored for on 22 occasions during the 2021/22 second-tier campaign.

Palmer: "Surprising" if Leeds look to sell Piroe and sign Adams

In a Football League World exclusive, pundit Carlton Palmer said: "It's reported that Leeds United want to sell their recent signing Joel Piroe from Swansea, and sign Che Adams from Southampton.

"It's a difficult one to call this one. Joel probably hasn't hit the ground running as he would have liked. I'm sure he would have liked to have scored more, and would have expected to score more.

"But it'd be surprising for Leeds United to want to sell him so soon.

"Che Adams is out of contract in the summer, and he will depart St Mary's, that is the shout, unless they're promoted to the Premier League.

"I would 100% see him leaving, there's been a lot of interest in him, apparently Wolves are interested in him, and apparently Crystal Palace are interested in signing the Scottish international.

"He's not been prolific himself, I think 40 games this season, 16 goals, a decent return, but you'd have been looking for over 20 goals from Che Adams, but available on a free with international and Premier League experience, that would be good business for Leeds United."

Adams will have hoped for a more successful 2023/24 campaign

The Scotland international has never been prolific in the Premier League, since signing for the Saints, then of the top-flight, in the summer of 2019.

During the 2019/20 season, the ace scored just four league goals, before scoring his best ever Premier League tally of nine goals during the 2020/21 campaign, which was played behind closed doors.

The former Birmingham City man was unable to push on from 2020/21, scoring on just seven occasions during the following season, before returning five goals as the Saints were relegated at the end of the 2022/23 campaign.

Relegation to the Championship offered Adams with a big opportunity to prove what he can do in front of goal at St Mary's, but given the fact that he scored an impressive 22 goals for the Blues during the 2018/19 second-tier season with the St Andrew's outfit, the St Mary's faithful may have been hopeful that he would score more than the 16 Championship goals he has produced during the 2023/24 campaign.

Nevertheless, he's a consistent steady stream of goals at both the top two levels of English football and that's underlined in the clubs that are interested in signing him right now.