Ajax defender Pascal Struijk to join Leeds United as Tyler Roberts pursuit ramps up

Leeds United are on the brink of completing their latest January signing after Pascal Struijk arrived in England to join the Championship club.

The Ajax defender flew into the country on Thursday [25 January] to finalise his switch to Elland Road which is expected to be concluded in the next 24 hours, according to The Express.

Struijk is expected to play under Carlos Corberan's Under-23 side before being considered for first team selection by Leeds head coach Thomas Christiansen.

He will become the sixth signing completed by Leeds in the January window after the arrival of a handful of young players earmarked for the future.

Aapo Halme, 19, Yosuke Ideguchi, 21, and Oliver Sarkic, 20, have all joined the club this month, while Laurens de Bock and Adam Forshaw have arrived hoping to make a more immediate impact.

A seventh young player could yet move to West Yorkshire in the coming weeks and months, with Leeds in the hunt to sign West Bromwich Albion striker Tyler Roberts, according to The Daily Mail.

The 19-year-old is currently on loan at Walsall where he has netted five goals in 17 appearances in all competitions for the club, catching the eye of several interested suitors.

Scottish Premiership side Rangers, Ligue 1 giants Marseille, La Liga duo Alaves and Serie A trio AC Milan, Sampdoria and Torino have all join Leeds in showing an interest in Roberts, who is available for just £300,000 in the summer as his contract reaches its conclusion.

Earlier this month, The Sun reported that West Brom had turned down a £4m offer from Leeds for Roberts, with the Wales Under-21 international seemingly destined to leave The Hawthorns this month.

Regardless of whether Leeds are able to concluded a deal for Roberts, the club are ready to roll the dice in an effort to win promotion back to the Premier League and will spend what they can to return themselves to their former glory.

"I think if we could identify that player [to fire Leeds to the Premier League] and we had to stretch financially to make it work, we'd make it work," manager director Angus Kinnear said.

"We're a board who are prepared to make calculated gambles but finding a combination of someone who we think can do that at his level and can hit the ground running and score 12 goals between now and the end of the season is challenging.

"It's particularly challenging when you start to look at the financials associated with those players. "For the long-term sustainability of the club we have to make sensible decisions.

"Where clubs have gone wrong is that they've made reckless gambles by getting excited about the prospect of promotion and then they've left themselves in financially difficult or impossible situations the following season and they haven't been able to recover from that.

"Our belief has always been that we will get Leeds back to the Premier League in the medium term. I think we have a good chance still of doing it this season."