Aston Villa’s pursuit of Sporting star Pedro Gonçalves gets very positive updates from the Portuguese media today.
That isn’t about a new move from the Premier League side or anything like that. That’s actually regarding the Lions’ expectations about a potential summer sale.
Newspaper O Jogo writes that Sporting expect Pote’s transfer to be ‘imminent’ in this transfer window, claiming it’s Aston Villa who are ‘in the lead’.
That’s why the club already anticipated the move and set a replacement for him, and that’s Famalicão’s Ivan Jaime.
Sporting seem to have really changed their mind regarding Pote’s departure. Because it had always been said that they’d keep him protected by his €80m release clause, and that position now seems different.
It’s now said that Sporting would accept selling him for something ‘close’ to the release clause, so that might be a golden chance for Aston Villa to get a discount on a player who scored 20 goals and provided 15 assists for his teammates this summer.
Another factor that should help is that the Lions were only getting 50% of the sale, but are now set to buy another other 40% from Famalicão, so they don’t need to fight for such a high fee anymore.
