It’s been reported today that following the speculation suggesting that Southampton striker Manolo Gabbiandini was now officially available for transfer, that Sampdoria have come in with a firm offer for the striker.
Since the day he arrived at Southampton, the 27-year-old has been linked with a return to Italy in every subsequent window and with 2018/19 being another season where he hasn’t recaptured his early goalscoring form, few I think were surprised that we would now entertain selling him.
Sampdoria’s offer is supposedly a loan for the remainder of the campaign, with a buy clause in place for the summer.
Sky state the buy option will be worth £10.75million and that does sound like a genuine ballpark figure given his overall form for us, and would be a couple of million loss given the fee we reportedly paid for him back in January 2017 which was around the £14.6million mark.
If that is the permanent fee, I would guess we’ll be close to breaking even when you factor in the loan fee and the saving of wages.