Afriyie Acquah’s potential transfer to Birmingham City is looking increasingly unlikely.
At one stage over the past week the move seemed imminent. Even when things started to fall apart, a source close to the deal told Sport Witness a move was still possible, and it’s clear the player and his camp have been keen on the Birmingham switch.
Torino’s turnaround on the situation, from being keen on a sale to ruling one out, has been put down to manager Sinisa Mihajlovic suddenly valuing the player more than he ever has before.
Toro News quote Mihajlovic as saying: “I told the club not to sell him. Birmingham’s offer was much lower than what appeared in the newspapers. He’s with us.”
Now all talk is about Acquah getting a renewal from Torino and probably a pay rise to go with it. Despite all this, Acquah doesn’t appear in the predicted starting line-ups for Torino’s match against Saussolo today, so it will be interesting to see how much he features.
If the amount of the offer was irrelevant, and Acquah not for sale at any price, then Mihajlovic probably wouldn’t have mentioned that Birmingham went in low.
Perhaps Birmingham’s first offer was so poor it irritated Torino enough to take Acquah off the market.
Given how public Harry Redknapp has been with his pursuit of Acquah, and also publicly distancing himself from the offer process, the Birmingham manager may be annoyed if the bid was as suggested in Turin.
