Bristol City, West Brom and Ipswich track £4m Blackpool star - transfer bid rejected

Bristol City are one of several Championship clubs reportedly tracking Blackpool star Jerry Yates.

The Sun reports that five clubs, which includes the Robins, are chasing the 26-year-old but they’ll have to cough up £4m to land him. Play-off finalists Luton Town and Coventry City are interested, as well as West Brom and newly promoted Ipswich Town.

The report adds that a £2.5m offer has been rejected. It will take £4m to prize away Yates from Bloomfield Road, as he still has a year left on his contract, with the Tangerines having a one-year extension that they could activate.

In a difficult campaign which saw them appoint three managers, Blackpool finished second from bottom but Yates was a shining light for them. He scored 14 goals and got four assists for them in the league, claiming the Players Player award at their end-of-season do.

Yates has been with Blackpool since 2020 and has got 46 goals and 18 assists in 139 appearances. He has got 23 goals in 109 Championship games.

A move for a striker seems unlikely given Nigel Pearson’s reason comments to the Bristol Post. Lincoln City striker Ben House and Kevin Nisbet have been linked with a move to Ashton Gate in recent weeks, but recruiting forwards is not a priority.

"Forwards are very expensive," Pearson said to Bristol Live. Forwards are commodities that don’t come up very often. Are we in a position to buy better than we’ve got? I don’t think we are.

“For us to buy players who are better than the ones that we currently have would be very, very expensive. So we’ll produce them instead.”

City have several attacking options, who can all play as an out and out striker as well as in differing roles. Homegrown talent Tommy Conway finished as the top scorer with 12 assists last term. Nahki Wells was cloe behind with 11, whilst Andi Weimann who is more of a midfielder these days got seven, with Sam Bell and Harry Cornick other options.

A new centre-back is on the top of the list of the 59-year-old, though the two deals in the pipeline are thought to be left-back Joe Bryan and utility man Ross McCrorie.