"Better for the club" - Bristol City urged to lean in one direction amid Tommy Conway, Middlesbrough, Burnley sagas | OneFootball

The Robins have two paths that they can go down, as things stand, to offload the 21-year-old.

Highlights

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Bristol City have two very interesting offers on the table, from Middlesbrough and Burnley, for striker Tommy Conway.

Conway is into the final year of his current deal, and has rejected offers from the club to sign a new one, so he will almost certainly be moved on by the Robins in this window.

Middlesbrough have offered them £5 million for the Scottish international, who has been training with the under-21s as of late, but City want a deal where they receive more money up front, so that they could put the funds to use in this window, according to Bristol Live.

An opportunity to potentially bolster the squad has arisen though, as they are exploring the option of doing a swap deal with Burnley, who are looking to offload players from their bloated squad.

As per Bristol Live, a deal that could see Conway join the Clarets may then see Robins transfer target Scott Twine, who was on loan at Ashton Gate for the second half of last season, and Luke McNally head the other way.

Tommy Conway swap deal encouraged

Football League World'sCity fan pundit, Tom Sandy, would rather his side went for the swap deal with the Clarets rather than getting the money from Boro.

He said: "Obviously the developments in the Conway deal are that we are looking to do a swap deal with Burnley for Twine and McNally.

"Twine has been a target of ours pretty much the whole summer now. The money was the main concern about it and with the way the negotiations have gone, Scott Parker has only just come in, they seem reluctant to sell someone like Twine for so cheap.

"He had an impact for Burnley when they went up a couple of seasons ago, and he's probably an asset that they'd like to keep around if they could. But, as I said before, Burnley have so many players that they are going to have to get rid of one or two, which may be what is happening with this deal. "I don't know too much about McNally. He seems a good player, an ex-Oxford centre-back - another one. We've already got Rob Dickie and Rob Atkinson, who are ex-Oxford players.

"Getting £5 million to reinvest in the squad would be fantastic. But you don't know what quality you're going to get out of that £5 million. You don't know whether you'll be able to turn that into a positive for the club.

"We've already signed strikers, we're not going to need to directly replace Conway, so we can look elsewhere. In swapping him for McNally and Twine, we know that we're going to get guaranteed quality.

"The winger has already performed in a City shirt, already performed under Liam Manning. So I think they're pretty even, but I think that I'd personally prefer Twine and McNally.

"Conway, right now for us, isn't going to be back in the squad. He's gone, so it's potentially getting £5 million for nothing, or getting two players for nothing, and I think for us, right now, with Manning, I think we're in a win-win situation. We're trying to strike while the iron is hot, and you can tell that from the deals that we're making.

"We're signing a lot of young players, a lot of quality too, and we're spending quite a lot of money, compared to what we've been doing in previous seasons. So I think that bringing in two assets in Twine and McNally, will be better for the club."

Burnley deal would make more sense for Bristol City

This scenario kills two birds with one stone. They get a player that they want and get rid of one that they need to offload, plus they'd get another experienced defender at this level included; that is if the Clarets are willing to do the deal.

The sticking point for them could be if they feel they aren't getting enough in return for what they are giving up.