Sheffield United midfielder Ismaila Coulibaly is said to be trying his hardest to force a move away from Bramall Lane this month.
Coulibaly has been a peripheral figure ever since signing for the club and has struggled with a number of injuries during that time.
The Mali international was signed as a potential future star when Chris Wilder was in charge the first-time around. However, he failed to feature under Wilder then and has not played a minute since the boss returned just over a month ago.
And now, it looks like Coulibaly is trying to get out of Sheffield United.
Ismaila Coulibaly trying to engineer move away from Sheffield United
According to Swedish outlet FotbollDirekt, Coulibaly is pushing hard to get out of United this January.
There is apparently an offer on the table for him from AIK in Sweden and the 23-year-old wants the move.
Chris Wilder has already said a number of players will go out this winter as he looks to reshape his squad a touch ahead of trying to at least fight relegation.
Coulibaly is no doubt in the category of players who can leave. Wilder has only selected him in one squad, the FA Cup win at Gillingham last week, and even then, the midfielder didn’t come on.
Now, then, it seems like his spell in Sheffield will be coming to a close soon enough.
A real let down signing
The signing of Coulibaly has always been a bit of a confusing one. There were rumblings at the time that he wasn’t even wanted by Wilder and was instead signed by the Prince and his then second in command, Jan van Winkel.
Quite what the semantics behind the deal were is open to debate but one thing is for certain and that’s that the signing has not worked out at all.
Coulibaly, to his credit, has had injury problems and has just never quite looked like being up to speed for the English game when he has played.
He had a few decent cameos under Paul Heckingbottom, with the FA Cup win over Spurs a highlight. He also got on the field at Wembley against Manchester City, something he’ll look back fondly on.
However, for everyone’s sake, it’s probably best if Coulibaly does move on now. He needs to play football for his own career above anything else and a move to Sweden is a good starting block for him.