Bianchi set to be Eriksson's first signing
Reggina striker Rolando Bianchi is poised to become
-Reuters, Milan.
Sven-Goran Eriksson's first signing at Manchester City, the Italian club said on
Tuesday.
The 24-year-old scored 18 league goals last season as the Serie A
side avoided relegation despite an 11-point penalty for their role in Italy's
match-fixing scandal.
"We have reached a preliminary agreement with
Manchester City for the permanent transfer of Rolando Bianchi... in a 13 million
euro (8.8 million pounds) transfer deal," Reggina president Pasquale Foti was
quoted as saying by British and Italian media. "The deal will be completed on
Wednesday."
Although City have declined to confirm the reports so far, it does seem certain that Bianchi will arrive at the club to become the first signing of the new regime and it looks to be an interesting one.
Bianchi had an exceptional season last time around and finished fourth in the race to be Capocanieri in Serie A, notching 18 goals in 37 appearances for a struggling Reggina side. He is twenty-four years of age so should be entering his prime years as a striker and shouldn't experience the growing pains as evidenced by Giorgios Samaras during his time at the club.
On the flipside though is ultimately strikers will be judged solely on goals, and Italian strikers do not in general have a great pedigree with names such as Grabbi and Maccarone having flopped after arriving in the Premier League at a young age.
Undoubtedly Eriksson though will have seen plenty of football during the year he was out of the game, and despite the funds available will not simply be throwing money at every player out there.
As pre-season begins to draw ever nearer, I'd expect that Bianchi would be the first of a series of Eriksson's recruits to arrive at the club.
5 comments:
I bought him on Football Manager a week ago for 8m it the first season he scored 15 goals in 32 apperances upfront on his own!
My and Sven mut be "mind" brothers
Bianchi is a good striker, completely different from Corradi. "Bison" (as Corradi is known in Italy) never scored much, his role has always been the target man one in order to flick on the ball for others to score and hold the ball waiting for the other players to arrive.
Bianchi, on the other hand is more comparable to Luca Toni. A good "box" player who can create changes for himself, mostly, and also for his teammates. I'm convinced he can do well four our City side.
Now let's see who are going to be the other signings.
Marco, City addicted from Italy
Hey Marco !
Welcome to the club. Prepared to get your heart broken on a regular basis? Hang around long enough and you will - but not this and next season. We're going to fly!
Hey wigan blue,
my heart has been broken many times in the past 12 years (I became a City fan when I discovered its history back in 1995) so no worries: there's nothing left to break in my heart, we can only improve this year (is it clear that I never loved Pearce as manager?) :-P
I'm fairly confident that Sven will do a good work, he's always been consistent at club level and he knows his job, but only time will tell.
For now, let's see who else will come to Eastlands in the coming days/weeks and how the manager will make them play.
First stop on the Italian Sky TV: Aug.19 for the derby.
Doncaster on saturday for me, god help me.
I'm pretty excited about this guy, lets hope he lives up to his price tag.
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