Leeds United are turning their attention to on-loan Red Bull Leipzig striker Jean-Kevin Augustin as they struggle to land domestic targets, according to The Athletic.

The Whites have been in a serious hunt for a striker this month after losing Eddie Nketiah, who has returned to Arsenal after only starting two Championship games throughout the first half of the season.

Their search initially brought them at the doors of Southampton and Che Adams, but after three bids were rejected by the Premier League club, with the third totalling to around £20million if made permanent, they have begun to look elsewhere for the goals to fire them to automatic promotion.

This search has taken sporting director Victor Orta into Europe and the Whites have set their sights on Red Bull Leipzig striker Jean-Kevin Augustin, who is currently on-loan at French Ligue 1 side Monaco.

Leeds’ hunt for a striker is heating up as we enter the final week of the transfer window, as Marcelo Bielsa will know he simply cannot afford to operate for the rest of the season with just Patrick Bamford as a recognised senior striker.

The question now is who is Jean-Kevin Augustin?

The Paris-born striker began his youth career with FO Plaisir and AC Boulogne-Billancourt before making the move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2009, where he stayed in their youth setup until 2015. From 2014 until 2017, he impressed massively in PSG’s B team, scoring a very impressive 22 goals in 38 appearances, before making his professional debut for PSG in the 2014/15 season where he was a late substitute for Javier Pastore in a Coupe De France Semi-Final victory. He made his first start for the French giants in the August of 2015, in a 2-0 win over Gazélec Ajaccio.

Following this, he went on to make 23 appearances for PSG, scoring two goals in the space of two years.

In the summer of 2017, he made the move to recently-emerging Red Bull Leipzig, who were rising to prominence in the German divisions thanks to a number of investments in very talented young players such as Timo Werner, Naby Keita, Marcel Sabitzer and Willi Orban amongst others.

During this time, he was attracting the attention of the national sides, as he was capped at youth level for France all the way from under-16s to under-21s, scoring five goals in nine caps for the latter.

Can you tell what season these Leeds United images are from?

Augustin helped create a small piece of history at Leipzig as he scored in their 3-2 win over Porto in the Champions League back in October 2017, which was the club’s first-ever win in the competition.

Having scored 12 goals in 42 appearances for the Die Roten Bullen, he fell somewhat out of favour with Werner’s red hot form not stopping any time soon, so a loan move to Monaco was his next step at the start of the season.

He signed for the French side on September 1st and the deal was to run until the end of the season with a potential option to buy at the end, however, he has made just 13 appearances this season, scoring once, so there are doubts over whether he will remain there for the whole season.

At just 22-years-old, Augustin is a very talented player and one that has the ability to suit Marcelo Bielsa’s system, with his willingness to link up with other attackers throughout the game, a brand of football that has been synonymous with each club he has played for in his career.

Standing at 5ft 8in, he isn’t going to be bossing centre-backs across Europe, let alone in the physically-demanding Championship, but his movement and pace off the ball could be something that Leeds have been crying out for even before Marcelo Bielsa arrived in 2018.

A striker with natural pace hasn’t been seen at Elland Road since Jermaine Beckford departed, so this could be set up to plug a very alarming gap. Jean-Kevin Augustin could also be crying out for a move to a club where he will play regularly after struggling at Monaco.