West Brom in talks to sign centre-forward, £710k fee all it takes for loan deal – journalist
Galatasaray have told West Brom they can sign striker Mbaye Diagne on loan for the rest of the season for £710,000, according to Hürriyet journalist Ali Naci Küçük.
Writing via his personal Twitter account on Thursday, Küçük reported that “official negotiations” have now started between Albion and the Turkish club.
It is understood that Sam Allardyce and Luke Dowling want Diange, 29, on loan until the summer and that will cost the Black Country club £710,000. If they accept that, Diagne should head to The Hawthorns.
Diagne on his way?
We exercised a lot of caution in the last transfer window when a raft of Turkish news websites and journalists made claims about West Brom’s activity.
Slaven Bilic’s link to Besiktas made it very easy to put two and two together while Kamil Grosicki even came out to rubbish links between himself and the Istanbul club.
However, this time, we feel a bit more optimistic about links between Diagne and West Brom because Albion’s hunt to sign the Senegal international has been widely reported in the English media.
Express & Star journalist Joseph Masi has recently reported that Galatasaray need to offload players this month in order to meet Financial Fair Play regulations so we’re willing to believe that Küçük’s update is worth reading into.
Diagne has been in good form in Turkey this season, scoring 11 goals in 19 appearances across all competitions, with nine goals coming in his last eight league outings for Galatasaray.
While he knows how to bang in goals in Turkey against teams like Hatayspor, Konyaspor and Rizespor, can he do it in the Premier League against the likes of Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City?
Diange has, worryingly, already spent part of his career playing in China and Saudi Arabia and the best level he’s played at was probably last season when he went on loan to Belgian giants Club Brugge.
He scored four times in nine appearances for Brugge before falling out with the manager over taking – and missing – a late penalty against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League when he wasn’t the designated penalty taker.
Diagne is a nine-times Senegal international who’s made a career of scoring against teams nowhere near as good as what he’d face in the Premier League.
In our opinion, he’d be a massive risk but that £710,000 loan fee must be appealing to Dowling and Big Sam.
In other West Brom news, Albion are in the hunt to sign this £50,000-a-week Premier League centre-mid.
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