Leeds are keen on Nigerian striker Jerry Mbakogu, that we know because the story filtered all the way through to the Yorkshire Evening Post in January but the deal was always planned for the summer. Today reports are suggesting that Leeds will bid around £4.5 million for the Carpi striker.
25-year-old striker Mbakogu is a striker from Serie B in Italy where he was named in the team of the year a few years back after an impressive goalscoring campaign but it’s fair to say he isn’t prolific by any means. The strange thing about this deal (if it does move forwards) is that Andrea Rardizzani made it clear he wanted to start looking in the English market for players now he has a squad he believes just needs a few additions. We have just paid £2.5 million for striker Tyler Roberts from West Bromwich Albion but he’s cracked his shin and will now be out for the rest of the season most probably, without even kicking a ball for the club. Pierre-Michel Lasogga is only on loan and with his wages at over £50k that would be a real struggle to pull off so a deal for another striker is surely on the cards, maybe even two.
Nobody really knows much about the Nigerian striker so it’s hard to comment and say a player would be good or not. You certainly can’t say that players who have come from that league have been a success in recent years but you also can’t write players off players you haven’t seen or heard of, the best example of that is Samu Saiz but as we know it can easily go the other way as well. Andrea Radrizzani has some serious work to do in the summer because we still haven’t replaced a few of the key players we allowed to leave in the summer and that has been the issue this season.
