Leeds United defender Charlie Cresswell has secured a loan move to Championship outfit Millwall.
The lowdown
The 19-year-old is the first player to depart Elland Road on loan this summer after Kalvin Phillips, Liam McCarron and Laurens De Bock all made permanent exits.
He has come through the youth ranks at the club, making his senior debut in a Carabao Cup clash with Hull City in September 2020. Since then, he has gone to play seven times for the Whites' first team, making five Premier League appearances.
Now valued at £2.7m by Transfermarkt, Cresswell is under contract with Leeds for another three years.
The latest
The Athletic's Phil Hay first shared the news about the young defender's move to London on Twitter on Sunday night.
The journalist tweeted that Cresswell had been 'scheduled to undergo [a] medical and join Millwall on a season long loan' for the 2022/23 campaign.
On Monday afternoon, Leeds then officially confirmed the 19-year-old's loan departure to The Den for the upcoming season.
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The verdict
Leeds clearly believe that Cresswell will benefit far more from potentially playing regular men's football in the Championship than he would from making sporadic appearances for Jesse Marsch's side.
With Diego Llorente, Robin Koch, Liam Cooper and Pascal Struijk on the books, they are already well-stocked in the centre-back department. Nonetheless, the future looks bright Cresswell, provided that this loan move goes to plan.
Leeds presenter Joe Wainman has showered the 19-year-old with praise, calling him 'unbelievable' and 'genuinely class', while the teenager has also earned international recognition, with five England under-21 caps to his name.
Hopefully his loan move to The Den will give him sufficient senior exposure to come back to Elland Road next summer a much more refined player who's ready to truly make his mark at Leeds.