South America may be a happy hunting ground for Town

THE thought of Huddersfield Town signing their first-ever Brazilian player has certainly captured fans’ imaginations after striker Lincoln was linked with a move to the John Smith’s Stadium.

The fact that a player of his profile - a Brazil under-20 international playing for Flamengo - could be reported to be of interest to the Terriers without getting laughed out of the room is indicative of where their transfer policy currently stands.

As we have noted, the new tiered points system after Brexit means that South America will suddenly become a more viable hunting ground for English clubs upon the turn of the new year, and we expect we could see plenty more players like Lincoln connected with Town. They might not entirely be barking up the wrong tree.

By Transfermarkt’s reckoning, Town currently have fewer foreign players in their first-team squad than any Championship side except Middlesbrough, with just nine: Juninho Bacuna, Adama Diakhaby, Carel Eiting, Isaac Mbenza, Joel Pereira, Pipa, Naby Sarr, Christopher Schindler and Alex Vallejo. If you generously include recent debutant Brahima Diarra, you can take the number up to 10.

However, five of those players arrived during the most recent window, and only two sides have signed more players from leagues outside the UK this season than Town’s three - soon to be four with the arrival of Danny Grant.

The two clubs to exceed Town’s tally are Norwich and Nottingham Forest, who each made five signings from overseas clubs, but also each made more total signings this summer.

That would suggest that although the Terriers are not averse to looking to their own shores for the right players, as they did with free agent Naby Sarr after he left Charlton, they feel they are going to get better value for ready-made first-team players out of markets abroad to supplement their growing number of academy graduates in the first-team squad.

That is a real about-face from the approach Town took in the last January window, when they signed six players.

The only foreign player among them was returning to the club on loan from a Premier League side (Jonas Lossl) and the only player signed from abroad was an Englishman (Chris Willock).

So perhaps it’s not surprising that when the word ‘Lincoln’ appears in a transfer headline alongside ‘Huddersfield Town’, it refers to a Brazilian of that name and not the Terriers going back to League One to see if the Imps have any more Harry Toffolos in the squad.