Saviola Out. But Who’s Coming in?

By: Daryl | February 12th, 2009

First the good news. I managed to sell Javier Saviola to Birmingham City for £3m. And not until after he’d left did I think up the nickname Chaviola. Ah well. Good luck to both of them in their battle against relegation.

Selling the little Argentine also took £51k per week off my wage budget, allowing me to rebalance the budget (love that feature) and have £12.5m in January spending money.

More good news: After a bit of haggling, Sampdoria have agreed to sell me their big striker Salvatore Foti who as mentioned yesterday, is my main target. I offered £8m, then £10m… they wanted £14m but eventually said yes to £12m. Deal.

Now the bad news: Foti appears to be a Big Time Charlie.

The plan was to sign this 22 year old and have him share lone striker duties with The Pog, plus occasional appearances on the left wing. Both are big men, ideal target men, and Foti is noticeably quicker. I was looking forward to seeing them battle it our for a first team spot.

But Foti wants £75gees a week, which would make him my top earner) and wants to be a “key player”. I’ve offered £60,000 and “important first team player”, but the lad’s not interested.

So… dilemma time.

I’m happy to pay £12m for this kid, but not so keen on making him a key player/top earner. The Pog was upset when I overlooked him for the captaincy, so can only imagine what signing another striker and paying them more than double his wages would do.

On the other hand… Foti’s stats are better than The Pog’s (he’s taller and quicker), so maybe it’s time for an upgrade? On the other other hand, the Toon Army heart The Pog:

The third thing muddying the water here is Diego, ex of Werder Bremen. The Brazilian attacking mid tore up the Bundesliga in 2009/10 (33 games, 15 goals, 14 assists, 7.78 average rating) and Man City paid £12m for him in the summer. But he still hasn’t played for Citeh (he’s not injured and it’s now January) and is listed as a “backup to the first team”. I’m tempted to try and swoop in and get him off City at a knockdown price (bit like I did with Arshavin) and just leave Foti where he is.

Obviously this wouldn’t solve my striker problem, but the idea of signing Diego on the cheap and then watching him take revenge on Man City is pretty hard to resist.