West Brom and Ipswich Town ready January action for long-term Blackburn target | OneFootball

Ipswich Town and West Bromwich Albion are reportedly set to battle it out in January as they both pursue long-term Blackburn Rovers target Derry Scherhant.

This is according to Football Insider, who have said that the two clubs want to reinforce their attacking options in the final transfer window of the 2023/24 season, in hopes of aiding their respective promotion pushes.

Rovers are said to be long-term admirers of the 21-year-old. Football Insider also said that the Lancashire-based club had three previous loan offers for Scherhant rejected by Hertha Berlin in the summer.

A fresh-faced forward

He's a right-footed Germany under-20 international who is fairly new to the top level of men's football. He made his debut for Hertha at the start of last season, and he went on to play 10 games for the club in the Bundesliga during the campaign. He scored one goal in the minutes he was given.

His side were relegated to Bundesliga 2 at the end of last season, and he's had a similar start to this campaign as he did the last one. Through the first 13 games of this season, he has found the back of the net once, and has not provided any assists.

These stats certainly don't paint an amazing picture of him for fans who expect their two clubs - Ipswich and West Brom - to be challenging at the top end of the table. But it's his form in the Regionalliga Northeast that has probably impressed the two sides most. This is the league in which Hertha's second team plays, and he has scored five goals in as many games for them this season, and has provided a total of 40 goal contributions in 51 games across his time playing for Hertha BSC II.

If the 21-year-old had struggled a bit last season, in his first 10 games of professional football, and then really came on in the division below, the pursuit of him by these Championship sides would be much more understandable. But that's not been the case.

There is obviously talent there though. The three second-tier sides that have shown interest in him in the past six months all have at least decent reputations when it comes to player recruitment. Town and the Baggies wouldn't just be taking a look at Scherhant just because Rovers wanted him in the summer.

But because the two teams that could end up battling for him in January are promotion-chasing ones, it is hard to see how he would add real quality on top of what they already have. Throughout the first 26 games of the season, Kieran McKenna has had some brilliant wide players to call on; and they've just added former West Brom player Jeremy Sarmiento to that list too.

Albion losing Sarmiento makes a move for Scherhant more logical - plus the fact that Grady Diangana has gone off to the African Cup of Nations for the foreseeable. Even still, it's not easy to see how the 21-year-old German would be able to get into the team ahead of what Carlos Corberan already has.