Dieng, a stopper for Middlesbrough, may be a better fit in the MLS after he was linked to Portman Road ahead of the summer.
With five Championship games left, Ipswich Town still holds an automatic promotion berth, even after losing to Norwich City on Saturday afternoon in the East Anglian rivalry.
The Tractor Boys were one of the best teams in the second division this year and might play in the 2024–25 Premier League. They were promoted from League One to the Championship in the previous season.
Due to Kieran McKenna’s team’s success in the last two years, the club has more transfer options. As a result, Seny Dieng, a goalkeeper for Middlesbrough, has been linked to them.
The Tractor Boys have been linked to Dieng by The Telegraph, but they have also revealed that Crystal Palace, Newcastle United, and Sevilla, a team in La Liga, are among the teams vying for the Senegal international’s signature. This means that McKenna’s team would almost certainly need to win promotion in order to have a realistic chance of signing the 29-year-old.
Seny Dieng
The Tractor Boys’ present goalkeeper, Vaclav Hladky, has a contract that is set to expire at the end of the season, thus the club is interested in Dieng. However, the East Anglian Daily Times reported last month that contract talks with Hladky were still in progress.
Patrick Schulte may be considered by Ipswich Town as a Seny Dieng substitute.
Given the interest that prominent clubs have shown in the former QPR player and the possibility of higher caliber options available, McKenna and company might want to consider other options during the summer transfer window.
Dieng has a lot of competition from USA international goalkeeper Patrick Schulte, who plays goalkeeping for Columbus Crew in Major League Soccer (MLS). Schulte has started two league games for the Ohio team this year and has kept two clean sheets.
According to FBRef statistics, Schulte, a 23-year-old goalkeeper, is the most statistically comparable goalkeeper to Hladky in the site’s database. Gavin Bazunu, a goalkeeper for Southampton, is the second most similar goalie to the Tractor Boys’ top scorer, Dieng, who is a transfer target.
In the 2023–24 Championship season thus far, Hladky has returned a save percentage of 66.0% with 101 saves in 41 games, while Schulte made 90 saves in 31 games played for an overall save percentage of 69.7% for the 2023 MLS season.
With 13 saves in six games thus far in the 2024 MLS season, the Columbus Crew stopper—who recently received his first cap for the United States—has maintained comparable but superior numbers than Hladky. His save percentage is at 72.2%.
In terms of clean sheet percentages, Hladky and Schulte are likewise quite similar. The Tractor Boys keeper has kept a clean sheet in 31.7% of his appearances in the 2023–24 Championship, while the USA player has maintained a clean sheet in 33.3% of his appearances in the 2024 MLS (his 2023 figure was only 22.6%).
Both players had comparable passing stats, although Hladky’s 2023–24 second-tier pass completion percentage of 85.3% is higher than Schulte’s 2024 MLS season total of 81.4%.
For Patrick Schulte, Ipswich Town would need to defeat Man United and Arsenal.
Top-tier teams Manchester United and Arsenal are reportedly mulling transfer raids for the 23-year-old in an attempt to bolster the depth of their respective goalkeeping departments, according a March Mail Online story.
This high-profile interest in the Columbus goalie shouldn’t deter the Tractor Boys, though, as it’s known that both of the English heavyweights would prefer to have Schulte as a backup option.
However, should McKenna’s club see themselves over the finish line for promotion, they might give the star first team football in the premier league the next season.
