According to claims from Italian website TuttoMercatoWeb, via Sport Witness, as cited by the Birmingham Live, Birmingham City are set to make a move for Leonardo Morosini, who currently plies his trade with Brescia in the Italian Serie A.
Premier League rivals Brighton and Hove Albion have also been credited with an interest in the 24-year-old attacking midfielder, who has only made three substitute appearances in the Serie A so far this season. (TuttoMercatoWeb h/t Birmingham Live)
As per the report, Serie B side Ascoli are presently in pole position to sign Morosini but the Blues have entered the race and are trying to pip the attacker from under the noses of the Italian second-tier outfit.
Born in Ponte San Pietro, Italy, Leonardo Morosini started his footballing education at Inter Milan and had a brief stint in the youth ranks at AlbinoLeffe before moving on to Brescia, where he burst on to the first-team picture in the Serie B during the 2013-14 season.
Having been named as the Serie B Footballer of the Year at the end of the 2015-16 campaign, the former Italian U21 international joined top-flight outfit Genoa back in January 2017. However, he struggled to cut the mustard in the Serie A and returned to Brescia after just one season at the highest level.
Morosini has once again failed to make much of an impact in the top-flight for a newly-promoted Brescia side this season, clocking up only 23 minutes of league football so far. The 24-year-old has registered over 100 career appearances in the Italian second-tier but has amassed only 7 outings in the Serie A.
Meanwhile, Birmingham City put an end to their six-game winless run in the Championship as goals from Lukas Jutkiewicz and Gary Gardner propelled the Blues to a 2-1 victory over relegation-threatened Luton Town last week.
Despite breathing some life into their faltering campaign with that victory, the Blues still find themselves languishing 18th in the standings, 10 points adrift of the top-six in the division.
A tally of 33 goals scored and as many as 44 conceded in 27 games clearly epitomizes that the Blues have some big gaps to plug at both ends of the pitch.
While shoring up the backline with some defensive recruits would make perfect sense, manager Pep Clotet also needs to focus on releasing the workload on Jutkiewicz by moving for a new striker before the January deadline.
Danny Cowley and impressive breakthrough starlet Jude Bellingham have made up for the failures of Jacques Maghoma and Jefferson Montero whilst Kerim Mrabti has also shown glimpses of promise.
However, if the speculations linking winger Fran Villalba with a move back to Spain (h/t Birmingham Live) in January are true, City might need to move for a new attacking midfielder to ensure the right kind of balance in their ranks.
To put things into perspective, Birmingham City need to look for players who could possibly improve their current squad but Leonardo Morosini doesn’t really fit the bill in that regard.
An overall tally of 21 goals and 9 assists in 112 Serie B appearances is hardly something that makes eyeballs turn and City would be better served by looking at options elsewhere if they are genuinely interested in adding to their creative cavalry in January.