Nottingham Forest are thought to be preparing a bid for Oxford United’s Irish striker Gavin Whyte, as reported by the Nottingham Post.

Whyte only moved to the Kassam last summer, but showed lots of promise as the season wore on and the 23-year-old has plenty of scope for significant improvement.

On the face of it, Whyte had a decent season but not one that suggests a £2m move for the forward. He bagged seven League One goals in 36 matches, 29 of those as starts.

He did suffer an ‘embarrassing’ moment during the season as well, but bounced back to register his first hat trick in April as the Us earned a valuable 3-2 win against Shrewsbury.

Whilst he hasn’t hit his peak yet, Forest clearly see the talent in the young forward. He’s got just four caps for Northern Ireland, but is likely to add to those as he improves.

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This would be a big blow for Oxford and again, on the face of it he looks replaceable. After all, Whyte only bagged three goals after Christmas, all of them in that one game.

That doesn’t detract from his obvious ability. He’s still raw having played all his football for Crusaders prior to moving to England, but he’s got the right attributes to develop.

He’s quick and has an eye for goal, two elements of an attacker’s game that can’t be trained.

Positional sense, making runs, bringing teammates into play; these are all aspects of the game that game be worked on and that’s why Whyte is causing interest to bigger clubs.

Managers know if a player can be moulded and developed or not. It’s possibly a reason why Karl Robinson plucked him from Ireland and why O’Neill now wants in on the action.

Oxford would lose out two-fold. Firstly, they’ve made an investment in Whyte, bringing him over and losing him for matches in the early part of the season to international call ups. They would be getting a nice cash bonus for him now, but is it enough? If he does develop into a better player, could they get much more for him in twelve months’ time?

The other issue is the impact to their squad. Karl Robinson is trying to build for the future and Whyte is clearly a part of that plan. If he were to go, albeit for a big fee, how hard would it be to find the right players again, the right blend of attributes and character that adequately replace the attacker?

This could be a big loss for the Us, if Forest push on with their interest.