The former Stoke City defender, Matthew Upson, is on the radar of a couple of Championship sides after being released by the Potters at the end of the last season. Those sides are Brighton & Hove Albion and Leeds United.
Upson had featured for Stoke only a couple of times in the last season. One of them was the Capital One Cup match against Swindon Town, while, the other one was the Premier League match against Southampton.
Upson’s performance in those two games wasn’t that good and he didn’t get any more playing opportunities.
At the start of the second half of the season, Upson was placed on loan to Brighton & Hove Albion. The English centre-back showed great form for the seagulls and put up quite a few match winning performances for them.
Upson’s consistency helped Brighton qualify for the play offs in the Championship. They didn’t go on to win the title though and lost the semi final against Crystal Palace.
Upson featured for the Seagulls in 18 matches and scored one goal. That goal came in the match against Blackpool in April. Brighton had won that match by a huge margin of 6-1.
According to some reports, the manager of Brighton, Gus Poyet, is quite impressed with Upson and he wants to sign him on a permanent basis.
Leeds United is also looking to secure the services of Upson. The Whites didn’t have a great last season. They finished 13th in the Championship points table.
The Leeds manager Brian McDermott is looking to rebuild his side. He wants to sign some experienced players this summer and Upson is at the top of his list.
It would be quite interesting to see which of these two clubs eventually succeeds in signing Upson.