Sources: Leeds United tell Huggins to find new club - months after signing long-term deal
Leeds United have told Niall Huggins to find a new club - months after signing a long-term deal, Football Insider can exclusively reveal.
The highly rated 20-year-old penned an improved three-year deal last December running until 2023.
But now a Leeds source has told Football Insider the versatile full-back has been informed he is free to leave.
United do not regard Huggins as capable of forcing his way into Marcelo Bielsa's team amid increasingly strong competition.
That will be a bitter blow for Huggins, who has been on Leeds' books for 14 years.
He graduated through the Under-18s and Under-23s to be handed his first professional deal in the summer of 2019.
The improved, long-term deal 18 months later suggested Bielsa and the Leeds staff regarded him as a first teamer of the future.
But that has only transpired on one occasion for the youngster.
He made his single first-team appearance to date for Leeds as a second-half substitute in February's 4-2 defeat to Arsenal.
Huggins played the last 37 minutes of the match at right-back.
United's decision to let him go ranks as a surprise given that run-out and the esteem in which he has been held for so long.
The youngster has been capped by Wales at Under-21 level and made 17 appearances for the Whites' Under-23s last term.