(Photo by Ewan Bootman/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Hibs sporting director Graeme Mathie has said Ethan Laidlaw should stay at Easter Road amid interest from big clubs like Leeds United.
Marcelo Bielsa’s team handed the striker a week-long trial this season while Manchester United are after him on a similar basis. Laidlaw isn’t the first Hibees academy player to receive interest this season, first-team regular Josh Doig also linked to Leeds United while goalkeeper Murray Johnson is a target for Premier League clubs.
Mathie has sent a message to Hibs kids amid interest from the likes of Leeds United. (Photo by MB Media/Getty Images)
Mathie believes there’s a first-team pathway for Laidlaw (EEN): “If I send Ethan to train with another club, I’m doing so because I have agreed to allow him to experience training opportunities at other clubs. I have no interest in selling him at all. None. Because I think he’s got an opportunity to progress at our club.
“He’s far better off staying at Hibs with a pathway to the first team than he is going somewhere else and messing about playing youth team football. There are very few, if any young players – Billy Gilmour may be the one exception – who have left Scotland at 16 and made it to be a top first-team player.
“So the conversations I have now about Josh Doig, for example, are entirely different to the conversations I have about Ethan and Murray. It’s not for me to tell a family or a young child what they can and can’t do but I would always paint a picture.
“Don’t mither to go and become a youth team player somewhere else before you really consider what you’re signing up for. And that’s where we’re at with Ethan. He is a player who we think is going to go into the first team. And if he does, it’s an entirely different conversation.”
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