Leeds United reportedly interested in winger Ezgjan Alioski from Lugano

Back to normal in the life of Leeds United fan.

Now that the manager situation has been dealt with, the transfer rumors are coming fast and quick, with all sorts of rumors flying about on twitter and on the clickbait merchants. Armed with a google search, whoscored.com data, and YouTube highlights, everyone is now a scout, analyzing how every player moves without the ball, what kind of workrate the player has in the defensive zone, and if the player relies too much on his strong foot when shooting. It really is all too much. Twitter rumors are hard to pin down, because any punter with a keyboard can literally start a rumor that ends up in the broadsheets given enough time and if the player is either a huge star or obscure enough to make any source seem credible.

So with that in mind, one of the names that popped up Tuesday was the name of a Macedonian winger who plies his trade in Switzerland at AC Lugano.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of the guy. I’ve barely heard of AC Lugano in Switzerland, and so I’m not holding my breath expecting the next Alan Smith to come walking through the door. It appears that he is a right winger that scored 16 goals in 34 appearances for Lugano in the Swiss Super League last season.

The reason for this rumor is that a Swiss paper, Blick, apparently said that Alioski is headed to Leeds. Newly promoted Bundesliga side VfB Stuttgart are also apparently interested, according to the never-wrong people on twitter, so who knows.

The guy scored a ton of goals as a winger in Switzerland. I have no idea what that means for Leeds, and I betting most people other than professional scouts or people that work in football have no idea as well.

On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see the scouting network not just looking at overpriced mediocre English talent, like the links over the weekend for Matt Derbyshire. But it’s also a bit worrying to grab a bunch of players who’ve never played in England before. How many dodgy signings have filled the grounds of English football over the years with the promise of world-class players arriving, only to find out the players are total crap?

I want to believe that the new board isn’t just going crazy and looking for players to fit a certain mold and a certain type of play. I really hope that’s the case and not just grabbing a bunch of players that look good on a spreadsheet. We’ll see if any of these new rumors actually pan out and if these players ever take the pitch at Elland Road.