2 new £35m+ striker sales

The richest clubs are having a bit of staring contest over the likes of Victor Osimhen and Viktor Gyökeres at the moment, but the next tier of clubs are making big moves for the next tier of forwards.

Let’s start with Brighton, who have handed Leeds a pretty big blow by triggering the £40m release clause of Georginio Rutter. The 22-year-old Frenchman pretty much exactly split his time between playing as a striker and a 10, so he’s not the easiest to profile, but he was a consistent scoring and assisting threat last season.

There are a couple of minor concerns here. To repeat a term I’ve used before, they’re not quite red flags, but orange flags. One is that he underperformed his xG by more than 6. He did run into some quality goalkeeping — he scored 7 from 10.71 post-shot xG — but finishing is something he’ll have to improve if he’s going to live up to the price tag.

Rutter’s 15 assists are also fake news. Not that 10.22 xG assisted and 0.21 open play xG assisted per 90 is anything to sneeze at, but some of these assist locations will make you laugh.

I also wonder how much Rutter’s numbers were inflated from playing on the team that had the best talent and xG difference in the Championship last year, and was extremely unlucky to not get promoted.

So I am Rutter-skeptical, but there are also plenty of positives here. He is clearly able to create his own shot and create shots for other people, he can play multiple forward roles, and he improved quite a bit from his age 21 to 22 seasons. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him take a step forward, start scoring closer to his xG, and end up being a good signing for Brighton.

When it comes to likely new Bournemouth signing Evanilson, I am less optimistic. The Cherries are reportedly paying FC Porto €37m guaranteed + €10m in incentives for the Brazilian striker.

He does some stuff well — solid presser, can set up teammates, decent finisher.

But 10.55 non-penalty xG in 2200 minutes on one of the top teams in the Portuguese Liga doesn’t scream must-buy for a Prem team with money burning a hole in their pocket. His ratio of touches in the box to shots is also pretty alarming, and he scored most of his goals against bottom-half teams. It feels like Bournemouth were desperate to replace Dominic Solanke as quickly as possible and asked some friendly agents who was available.

News and rumours

• Youssouf Fofana has apparently told all of his potential Premier League suiters from the start of the summer that his preference was to move to AC Milan, and now that appears to be on the verge of happening. So much for Man United finding a cheaper alternative to Manuel Ugarte.

• That move continues to look difficult for them due to Scott McTominay not attracting the type of bids they’d like. Napoli are the latest team to show interest, but on loan with an option to buy at the end, rather than 8 figures of cash up front. United will likely tell them to do one.

• And in our third bit of United-related news, they’re not going to be able to sell Jadon Sancho to Paris Saint-Germain for a fee anymore. The Parisians don’t have any budget left for a winger after agreeing to a deal with Rennes for Desire Doue, a very fun dribbly boy.

• Multiple outlets are reporting that Mauricio Pochettino has accepted an offer to become the next manager of the United States national team. I think Poche is going to enjoy just being a coach without worrying about transfer nonsense, and the USMNT is going to enjoy having him.

• One of his potential key players, holding midfielder Tanner Tessmann, has been subject to transfer rumours all summer. He had a proposed move from Venezia to Inter Milan collapse, but Torino, Roma, and Fiorentina are all reportedly looking into him after a nice showing at the Olympics.

• Manchester City were probably considering a forward purchase following the sale of Julian Alvarez anyway, but a serious injury to youngster Oscar Bobb might accelerate that process. Bobb was expected to get a lot more minutes this season, but he’s out at least 3 months with a broken fibula.

• In news that is less consequential for City, but perhaps extremely consequential for the relegation race, Kalvin Phillips is headed to Ipswich on loan. It would be lovely to see him return to form, but we don’t really have good information to predict whether or not that’s likely.

• Tottenham Hotspur women are expected to sign Australia defender Clare Hunt from PSG this week. Emma Sanders reports it’ll cost them a fee, but it’s not clear how much. It’s tough to evaluate Hunt’s stats — literally any person reading this newsletter would have good passing and low ball-winning numbers on PSG, D1F is outrageously top-heavy — but she had a very good World Cup a year ago.

• If you missed the UEFA Super Cup, you may be surprised to learn that Vini Jr and Kylian Mbappe are good at football. “How are they going to fit in together when they both want to play on the left,” many asked. I think they’re just going to figure it out because they are two of the ~5 best players on earth.

• La Liga kicks off Thursday! I’ll be watching both games, but Getafe vs. Athletic is a clear undercard for me. Betis vs. Girona is on at 8:30 p.m. UK/2:30 p.m. US, and it’ll be interesting to see if either looks like they’re still a contender for 4th.

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