Journalist Toby Cudworth has revealed on the Talking Transfers podcast that Southampton have reignited their interest in Armando Broja with an offer understood to have been made.
West Ham (Daily Mail) and Everton (The Telegraph) are both said to have registered their interest in the 20-year-old Albanian striker.
However, having spent last season on loan at St. Mary’s the Saints are believed to have initiated contact with Chelsea over a ‘permanent’ deal having originally thought an agreement was not plausible.
An intriguing report from Ora News in Broja’s home country exclusively revealed that Thomas Tuchel doesn’t plan to take the centre-forward to the Blues’ pre-season tour of the USA and the player’s representatives are said to have given the Stamford Bridge an ultimatum of either bringing the player on tour or he leaves.
The west London club are set to head Stateside on Friday which would mean that Broja’s future could be clarified pretty swiftly and Cudworth has revealed that the Saints are firmly in the hunt.
(30:53)” It’s our understanding that Southampton, having initially thought a deal might not be there for them, have gone back to Chelsea and have made a bid to try and bring Broja back to St. Mary’s on a permanent deal.”
TIF Thoughts on Broja and Southampton…
Is Broja worth £30m?
Yes
No
Last season the youngster netted six times in 32 Premier League appearances on the south coast leading Saints legend Francis Benali to praise the burly striker as ‘sensational’.
However, the ‘devastating’ striker’s SofaScore rating of 6.69 last term places him behind all of Che Adams, Adam Armstrong and Shane Long which may be a cause for concern.
The Telegraph have claimed that Chelsea will seek close to £30m for their player but besides his presence in the air and tenacity as exemplified by his 4.28 aerial duels and 17.13 pressures won per 90 minutes (Fbref) he isn’t the most creative or prolific.
With 0.27 goals per game, he ranks in the bottom 36% of strikers in Europe’s top five leagues and European competitions in that aspect.
His pass success rate is among the bottom 10% while he is among the 5% of his positional peers who failed to register an assist in the past year.
However, perhaps those areas of his game can be worked on with time on his side.
Stats aren’t everything….he’s a very young player with heaps of potential and gave us a glimpse of what that future looks like last season at Saints. Rotting on the bench or in the U23’s at Stamford Bridge isn’t exactly going to help him.