Bristol City and two Championship rivals interested in Middlesbrough left-back who played at EURO 2016

Bristol City and two of their Championship rivals are reportedly interested in former Wales international Neil Taylor.

The 32-year-old has been at Middlesbrough since the middle of November and signed a short-term contract with them until the middle of January.

Taylor though has yet to extend his deal at the Teeside club and now the Robins could pounce on what would be an astute acquisition.

A report from Football Insider says that the Robins, as well as Coventry City and West Bromwich Albion are interested in the left-back.

Boro remain keen to keep him and need reinforcements after their game against Sheffield United today was called off after a lack of first-team players.

So far, he has been playing as a back-up option to Marc Bola but has since got into the first-team fold and gone on to make two Championship appearances.

Given his wait for an appearance, Taylor may be inclined to move to a club where he is guaranteed first-team football.

Nigel Pearson sometimes changes the shape of his team with a traditional left-back, as he did in the 2-1 defeat to Queens Park Rangers with Cameron Pring playing there. He has however favoured a more attacking formation with Callum O’Dowda operating as a wing-back on a number of occasions.

Meanwhile Jay Dasilva has been left out in the cold with no Championship appearance since the 3-2 defeat to Coventry City in mid November.

In what is a youthful squad however international experience could be important to the development of some of the young stars and a player who played a major international Championship would be just that.

Taylor started his professional football career at Wrexham and played for them for three years before joining Swansea City in 2010.

He would play one season in the Championship, helping the Swans to promotion to the Premier League for the first-time in their history, their stay would be a long one as he would play in English football’s top-flight for six seasons.

In between his stay in South Wales, he represented Wales at EURO 2016, scoring in their group stage win over Russia in his one and only goal for his country. Taylor and co reached the semi-finals of the tournament. He is just seven caps shy of 50 for his country and should he move to B36, he’d link up with his compatriot Andy King.

Taylor left the Swansea.com Stadium in the second-half of the 2016/17 season, joining Aston Villa, and after two seasons of waiting, helped the Villains back to the Premier League.

He played 14 times in their first season back but the campaign after he was just limited to just one league outing which sparked the end for him at Villa Park.

His contract would not be removed and for a while, he worked as a pundit for both for the BBC for their coverage of EURO 2020 and then for Sky Sports for the Championship.

With Taylor’s contract running out and his wages expected not to be high given his rotational role, it could be one that could be considered given the lack of financial risk.