Šeško's replacement at Leipzig is really fun

Despite teams knowing that RB Leipzig were flush with cash following the sale of Benjamin Šeško — and ahead of the likely sale of Xavi Simons — they still managed to get a replacement in for a reasonable fee. Meet Rômulo Cardoso, a Šeško-sized striker who joins after one promising year at Göztepe.

Rômulo didn’t actually put up very good numbers in his native Brazil, but found his footing after a move to Turkey. Enjoy a sizzle reel.

His shot map doesn’t exactly look very Šeško-like. He won a decent amount of headers, but only had one headed goal, and had a lot more variety in his shot types and locations. This doesn’t look like crazy volume, but it’s pretty good for a striker on an 8th placed team with super extreme budget inequality between the high and lower budget teams.

But the thing that Leipzig is going to love about Rômulo, and the biggest change from when Šeško was in the lineup, is his playmaking. As talented as Šeško is in front of goal, he was criticized for bringing very little to the table in build-up, and he’d often disappear from games entirely. Rômulo, meanwhile, might be an even better assister than he is a traditional striker.

Paying €20m+ for a guy with one good season in Turkey is definitely risky for Leipzig, and obviously there’s some high flop potential here. But Rômulo looks like a very fun profile of striker to pair with a pure goal-scorer, and I can see him helping Loïs Openda return to his former 20+ goal scoring form.

Over on the podcast, the boys talked Newcastle yesterday. They’ve got some ideas for how to replace Alexander Isak, as well as what Newcastle should do to improve their midfield.

(If you prefer your podcasts in audio-only format, the RSS feed is here, and we’re on both Apple and Spotify as “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”)

More transfer rumours

• Speaking of Newcastle, they’ve locked up a deal for Jacob Ramsey. I think he’s a good player, and £40m is a reasonable fee for a player of his age and production. But it’s kind of an odd allocation of resources for someone who is presumably just a backup to their better wingers.

• Liverpool are in negotiations for two central defenders. 18-year-old Giovanni Leoni is close to joining from Parma, while Marc Guehi negotiations have resumed. I’m guessing Ibrahima Konaté contract negotiations aren’t going great?

• Everton has apparently bid £37m for Artem Dovbyk to bail their sister club out of a striker that Roma’s new manager doesn’t like. I uhhh, can’t imagine Roma will reject and say they value him at more. Either this is happening or it’s fake news.

• Just a couple days after firing his agent, Dominic Calvert-Lewin has signed a deal with Leeds. Keep that agent fee for yourself and just pay a lawyer their hourly rate, huge W.

• Benfica are interested in newsletter favorite Georgiy Sudakov, a very talented playmaker from Shakhtar Donestk that I’d love to see in a more difficult league than Portugal.

• Aston Villa would like to bring back Marco Asensio, who had a very nice loan spell for them. He’s 29 and on big wages though, not sure paying a transfer fee to secure a permanent deal is very smart here.

• I do not know anything about Sebastien Vidal and I don’t mean to attack him personally, but I think this story about Manchester United bidding €80m for Fermin Lopez is fake. I’m not calling him a liar, but I do think he got duped.

• It appears that Rasmus Hojlund has finally accepted that he’s going to be a permanent bench rider if he stays at Old Trafford and should accept a loan. AC Milan have offered a €6m loan fee + option to buy, and he’s considering it.

• In other Milan news, I like this right back they’re negotiating for. 21-year-old Zachary Athekame looks like a beast, and €10m is a very reasonable price.

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