Brighton have bid rejected for £18m rated Genk winger Leandro Trossard
Brighton and Hove Albion have had a substantial bid rejected for Genk winger Leandro Trossard – with a second offer to set to go in over the next few days.
The Belgian champions are holding out for £18m for their captain who scored 22 times in 2018-19 to fire the Smurfs (fantastic nickname) to their first Jupiler League title for eight years. He also registered 11 assists from his 47 appearances last season.
Trossard’s form has attracted plenty of interest. Arsenal were being linked with a move for the wide man in January while last month, the Sunday Express took time out from writing stories about Princess Diana or how we’re all going to die in the coldest winter in history to report that Everton expected to secure his signature this summer.
Southampton, Bundesliga runners up Borussia Dortmund and Ligue 1 side Monaco are also said to have been tracking the 24-year-old, who despite being named in several Belgium squads is yet to make his international debut.
Should the Albion decide to meet Genk’s asking price, then it would break the club-record fee of £17m paid to AZ Alkmaar for Alireza Jahanbakhsh last summer.
Given that the Iranian international had similarly impressive stats in the Netherlands as Trossard does in Belgium, only the most excitable Seagulls supporters will be getting too carried away should the deal come through.
Having said that, players from the Jupiler League have fared much better when moving to the Amex than those from the Eredivisie.
Maty Ryan’s first club in Europe after moving from Australia was Club Brugge. He then went onto be a teammate of Trossard at Genk, playing 17 times on loan with the Smurfs from Valencia before the Albion snapped him up for £5m in the summer of 2017.
Jose Izquierdo also played in Belgium for Brugge from where Brighton signed him for £13m a few weeks after Ryan’s arrival. And Nobody should need reminding about the roaring success that Percy Tau was on loan at Union Saint-Gilloise last season, winning the Belgian second tier Player of the Year award.
With Izquierdo set to miss the start of the new season after undergoing a knee operation and Jahanbakhsh yet to register a single goal or assist in the Premier League, bringing in a winger who can help ease the burden on Solly March and Anthony Knockaert would be a wise piece of business from Graham Potter – especially if the new boss wants to introduce a more attacking brand of football.
It also sounds like Trossard will fit in well at the Albion. One of the replies on a tweet from Belgian sports website HLN Sport breaking the news read: “Quite a good player when he’s sober…”
That was then followed up with “Let’s say he likes a bender so now and then. And the first thing in the human personality that dissolves in alcohol is dignity. Keeping him out of the pubs might be a slight challenge.”
Quite a good player for @OfficialBHAFC when he's sober…
— Tom Turesson (@Turesson1891) June 14, 2019
Let's say he likes a bender so now and then. And the first thing in the human personality that dissolves in alcohol is dignity. Keeping him out of the pubs might be a slight challenge.
— Tom Turesson (@Turesson1891) June 14, 2019
Somewhere, Lewis Dunk, Shane Duffy and Dale Stephens like this.
