Newcastle are keeping tabs on Amari Richards from Leicester City’s U18s

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Newcastle United and Burnley had scouts watching on as Amani Richards bagged both goals against his former club as Leicester City U18s beat Arsenal U18s 2-0.

Richards is attracting interest from abroad too with representatives from Wolfsburg and Freiburg also in attendance on in midweek. According to The Daily Mail, Leicester are aware of growing interest and are keen to tie Richards down to a new deal before his current one expires next year.

At just 18-years-old Amani Richards is already on his third club having started in the Chelsea youth setup before switching to Arsenal. The Gunners gave him his first professional contract, but just three months later he moved to Leicester City after failing to break into Arsenal’s U23 set up.

Richards is scoring for fun for Leicester U18s

At Leicester he’s started to thrive having helped himself to 10 goals in 17 outings for the Under 18s, registering five assists as well.

Those types of stats don’t go unnoticed by Dan Ashworth‘s scouting army and his representatives were there to watch him add two goals to his tally.

Now the race begins to see if Newcastle can beat out interest from Burnley as well as clubs from Germany, Holland and Belgium, and of course, Leicester themselves.

Newcastle should be able to see off the competition for Richards

Newcastle already have a promising young striker on their books after snapping up Australian international Garang Kuol from Central Coast Mariners last year. However, things aren’t going well for the young Aussie out on loan at Hearts and question marks were starting to appear. Although, Kuol did just bag his first senior international goal in a friendly against Ecuador in the international break, so maybe he can take that confidence back to Edinburgh.

Of course having one decent striker at youth level doesn’t mean there’s no room for another. Eddie Howe has always played up the importance of competition for places, so it’s no shock that we’re looking at someone like Amani Richards.

I’d say that given the teams interested right now, Newcastle would be the stand-out choice for a young player. Leicester might feel confident they can keep hold of him as the kid is likely settled in the East Midlands. But Newcastle’s project could prove to be too tempting.