After parlaying his electric rookie season in MLS into an overseas loan to English Championship side Barnsley FC, Orlando City SC forward Daryl Dike is reportedly on the English Premier League radar.
That's according to a report published on Thursday from Leon Wobschall of the Yorkshire Post, who spoke with Barnsley CEO Dane Murphy about the arrival of the 20-year-old Dike and what it could mean for his future.
“When it became known that he was coming to us, there have been several Premier League teams who have reached out and said they are going to monitor him and they have him on their radar," Murphy told Wobschall. “We will see how that unfolds. But he was an unknown quantity because of his first year in MLS and MLS is getting more eyes on it.”
It's all the continuation of Dike's rapid rise from the fifth overall pick in the 2020 MLS SuperDraft. The University of Virginia product was a revelation in his first MLS campaign, scoring eight goals and dishing out four assists in 1,224 minutes, helping the Lions make the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time since joining the league in 2015, and procuring his first US men's national team cap in the Yanks' 7-0 friendly rout of Trinidad and Tobago last week.
Dike is on loan with Barnsley for the rest of the Championship season and could make his debut as soon as this Saturday against Derby County. Should he make a splash, interest in the player only figures to surge. Interestingly enough, Murphy told Wobschall that Barnsley do have a purchase option to permanently acquire Dike, but added that some of the reported numbers on the fee were inaccurate.
"I will not go into detail," Murphy said. "Some of the numbers being thrown around are just ‘silly season.’ There is a buy option and Orlando wanted a recall option in there.”
