Crystal Palace have reportedly made an offer for the Santos midfielder Lucas Lima. According to UOL, the club want to have the 26-year-old on a one-year loan with an option to buy him for his release clause.
Palace have reportedly sent Santos a ‘letter of intent’ and talked to the player’s agents. However, the offer was immediately ruled out. First because Lucas Lima wants to join a bigger club. Secondly because Santos want to sell him for a better bid.
This week, the player had already confirmed he had received an offer from England: “Not everything that arrives goes out in the press, and not everything out in the press is what arrived. I’m calm. At the start of the window it disturbed me a bit, but now I have my feet on the ground.
“Things from England arrived, I didn’t even hear about China this window. That was it. There are clubs who approach and are not out in the media.”
UOL don’t mention how much Lucas Lima’s release clause is, but reports from Brazil suggest it’s €60m.
Crystal Palace’s offer is something of a curiosity in Brazil. That’s because Lucas Lima only had offers from Porto and China last year, so he hired Wagner Ribeiro to be his agent, who also works with Neymar and Lucas Moura. His intention was to get offers from big clubs such as Barcelona or Real Madrid, but it seems it’s not happening.
Despite having a bad season, Lucas Lima is a very intelligent and skilful midfielder who has shown a lot of good things in the last couple of years. But €60m sounds crazy for a 26-year-old who’s yet to be proven at the top level.
Maybe Palace’s idea, if the claims were true, would be to test the player out and then, if he’s successful, negotiate the price down. If Lucas Lima doesn’t have an EU passport, a work permit may well be an issue too.
