Since DeichStube reported on Saturday that Royale Union Saint-Gilloise star Deniz Undav is set to join Brighton & Hove Albion and sign a ‘long-term contract’ at The Amex, there have been several claims on this topic in Germany, Belgium and England.
The striker is leading the Jupiler Pro League’s goalscoring charts with 18 goals, and also has 10 assists to his name from 25 matches.
Het Nieuwsblad now explain the deal to take the 25-year-old to the Premier League side ‘is close’ and he will return to the Belgium club on a loan deal until the end of the season.
Both Union Saint-Gilloise and the Seagulls are owned by Tony Bloom, and this is the reason Brighton have allowed the German to finish the campaign with his current club.
It would be a ‘major blunder’ from Bloom, had he decided to take Undav to England immediately, since the Belgian side are leading the table, mainly because of his goals and assists. The deal to take the attacker to Brighton will cost them around €7m.
Union Saint-Gilloise sealed a 1-0 win over Anderlecht on Sunday, and the newspaper says Undav was ‘disappointing’ against Vincent Kompany’s side.
His manager, Felice Mazzu, wants to keep the player until the end of the campaign and understands if Undav is distracted by transfer speculation.
“For now, I have not received any information from the management that a player would leave. All I know is we have a pact that everyone will stay until the end of the season,” Mazzu was quoted as saying by Het Nieuwsblad.
“If Undav left after this season, then that is more than deserved. If a player leaves for a competition where he can improve both sportingly and financially, I can only be happy.
“This situation is not easy, but Deniz is an intelligent guy. At the moment there are just a lot of emotions involved: he gets a lot of attention from the press, and there are several situations that he does not know yet because this is his first season at the highest level.
“This is a learning process for him, and at a higher level he will end up in this kind of situation even more.”
