Incoming Brighton and Hove Albion signing Malick Yalcouyé could be as good as much talked about Tottenham youngster Lucas Bergvall, having impressed early on in Sweden.
That’s according to journalist Ola Gustavsson, the news director at Fotboll Direkt, who has praised the youngster today as he closes in on a move to Brighton.
Two reports today have indicated that the Seagulls are close to sealing a deal for Yalcouyé after making a bid for him at the end of last month.
It was first reported that they had beaten stiff competition for the youngster, before a later report detailed how he had left training today to potentially seal his move to the Premier League.
He explains that IFK Gothenburg will solve their financial problems with the sale of the youngster, with a SEK 100m deal only SEK 10 million short of the record figure Tottenham paid for Lucas Bergvall earlier this year.
It’s very much a ‘winning lottery ticket’ for the Swedish club, who have desperately needed such a deal for a long time.
The club’s own transfer record of SEK 40m will be smashed completely and it will also eclipse previous deals, such as Alexander Isak’s SEK 90 million move to Borussia Dortmund in 2017 or Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s SEK 82 million move to Ajax in 2001.
The question is whether Yalcouyé is worth such a price, but Gustavsson believes it is a fair price given Bergvall went to Tottenham for SEK 110m earlier this year.
He has watched both players and believes Yalcouyé isn’t far from being as good as him, even if they are different profiles. He says Yalcouyé’s ‘tenacity’ without the ball building man-on-man pressure is ‘very impressive’, as is his maturity and his focus.
The journalist feels it is clear why Brighton would be willing to pay such a big fee for the midfielder, particularly given the hype around Bergvall.
The latter is considered one of Europe’s top talents and Gustavsson believes Yalcouyé showed early on in Sweden that he wasn’t far behind, suggesting Brighton may have a very exciting talent within their grasp.
