Profiles of City's transfer targetsUpdated: December 20th, 2006
I’ll start with the most recent speculation and the Sunday Mirror story that representatives of Lillestrom midfielder Robert Koren are due in Manchester this week for transfer talks.
The 26-year-old Solvenian playmaker scored 10 goals in 26 appearances this season and was voted the Norwegian league’s midfielder of the year, but it’s unclear what effect yesterday’s sacking of Lillestrom boss Uwe Rosler will have on the talks.
I’m ignoring talk of the possible return of SWP on loan for now as the story from the Daily Star Sunday doesn’t contain any new facts. The Sunday Mirror this weekend reported that Wright-Phillips would be leaving Chelsea in January, but again failed to provide any evidence to back up the claim.
As the MEN last week claimed that limited funds means Pearce will be looking at players from the lower leagues, here are the four players the paper believes Pearce is keeping tabs on:
Billy Sharp (Scunthorpe)
Position: Forward
Age: 20
Height: 5ft 9
League record:
2006-07: 12 goals in 17
2005-06: 23 goals in 37
2004-05: 9 goals in 16
Career total: 44 goals 70 league games (0.63 goals per game)
video; Sky archive; BBC interview; soccerbase
Signed for £100,000 in August 2005, the 20-year-old’s phenomenal strike rate has been attracting a lot of interest from Premiership clubs.
Scunthorpe manager Brian Laws claims seven or eight Premiership scouts turned up to watch Sharp and striker partner Andy Keogh for one game in October. At the end of that month Pearce attended Scunthorpe’s home game against Leyton Orient, in which Sharp scored twice.
“I’m trying to improve with every game I play and with every training session. I am still learning - I am only 20 - and hopefully I can get better and better,” Sharp told the BBC in August.
With Scunthrope currently just one point off automatic promotion from League One, you suspect it would take a hefty offer to win his signature.
Izale McLeod (MK Dons)
Position: Forward
Age: 20
Height: 5ft 11
Contract until: 2008
League record:
2006-07: 13 goals in 8 games
2005-06: 17 goals in 39 games
2004-05: 16 goals in 43 games
Career total: 49 goals in 123 league games (0.40 goals per game)
video; Sky news archive; profile; soccerbase
The former England under-21 international was described in a MK Dons fanzine as having blistering pace, but “a real confidence player”. Mcleod was the most fouled player in League One last season and Dons fans felt he was unlucky not to win more penalty claims.
In June, Dons chairman Martin Allen announced he was prepared to sell McLeod (link), though he stressed that the player hadn’t asked for a transfer. A £1m bid from Peterborough was turned down last month (link), and a bid from Wolves was reported to have been rejected in December 2005.
Nicky Maynard (Crewe)
Position: Forward
Age: 19
Height: 5ft 11
Contract until: 2008
League record:
2006-07: 9 goals in 16
2005-06: 1 goal in 1
Career total: 10 goals in 17 league games (0.59 goals per game)
video; Sky archive; BBC profile; soccerbase
He might be playing for Crewe, but there’s little in this 2min video to suggest he’s the next Dean Ashton.
While team-mate Ryan Lowe told the BBC that Maynard was “destined for the top”, he admitted the player “still needs to learn a few things”, such as improving his build-up play.
Caleb Folan (Chesterfield)
Position: Forward
Age: 24
Height: 6ft 2
Contract until: 2008
League record:
2006-07: 6 goals in 15
2005-06: 0 goals in 27
2004-05: 6 goals in 32
Career total: 16 goals in 101 league games (0.16 goals per game)
Sky news archive; Chesterfield Today; soccerbase
He’s nicknamed the “raging bull”, which strikes me as a polite way of calling him clumsy. Certainly his failure to score in 27 league games last season does little to dispel that idea.
But he scored against us, and two days after getting a late winner against West Ham, Chesterfield manager Roy McFarland slapped a £2m price tag on the player (link). Shortly after that Folan signed a 12-month extension to his contract.
You suspect that if any club offered £2m, McFarland would laugh all the way to the bank.
~ No further developments yet on the links to Andwele Slory and Amr Zaki.
Slory is a 24-year-old forward from Surinam, who has scored 5 goals in 10 games for Dutch side Excelsior this season and bagged 14 goals in 36 games last season. His stats can be found here.
The link to Egyptian striker Amr Zaki comes from this report, which was based on a fax from an agent and claims City have tabled a £2m bid for him. David Pleat wrote this profile of Zaki in The Guardian.