Evans bid rejected
CITY have turned down a £1.5m bid from Sheffield United for 20-year-old striker Ched Evans.>>MEN.
The Wales international was expected to be one of the victims of the cull which manager Mark Hughes is planning - to make room for his summer signings.
But City's rejection of the bid from the Championship play-off finalists is a sign of intent that they will not let their Academy success stories go for peanuts.
I'd be surprised if the fee itself was the issue with any potential move as I think £1.5 million is more or less in the region of what we could command for Evans.
Does it indicate a future for Evans at the club? Again, I would be surprised as despite him making a number of appearances last season he did appear to fall down the pecking order with Caicedo earning favour during the run in.
The likelihood as well is that certainly one, possibly two top level forwards will arrive during the summer and some younger Academy forwards nipping at his heels so I don't see that Evans, for all his industry and physical presence (clearly an asset for Hughes) getting much opportunity. Whilst he has not had a consistent run in the side, I don't think he quite has the quality that is required - certainly not in playing a lone striker role.
Perhaps Hughes is mindful that the Sturridge situation is still in limbo, and perhaps unwilling to let Evans leave quite yet with that being unresolved.
3 comments:
Could be that MH is sticking to his guns about not letting anybody go until he's got all his summer signings sorted. That could mean that some of our outgoing players may not be worth as much if negotiations are protracted (as they appear to be), but of course that doesn't matter. We'll have a better idea of where he's coming from when the big bids for Mills and Vassell start to fall through the letter box....
Hughes did explicitly say that he would strengthen the squad before selling any players. Seeing as though we haven't got any new strikers in yet and Sturridge has all but left, selling Evans would be to weaken the squad.
It's nice for the club to be in the financial position to take this policy, but I can't see Ched being too happy about it!
Yeah it could well be that the frustrating Sturridge situation has kept us from selling Ched on.
At the end of the day I believe Ched is ultimately a gonner. Without wanting to sound patronising to the lad, he'll be a very good Championship striker and possibly could do well with one of the lesser Premier League clubs, but not City.
Caicedo seems to get a lot of stick but at the end of the day he scored goals where Ched did not. If Ched had popped in a couple of tap ins he would've had that run in the side that Caicedo eventually secured. For me Evans just seemed to panic too much when he was on the ball.
Great blog here though. I've a blog of my own called Without a Dream in Our Hearts (withoutadreaminourhearts.blogspot.com)
Check it out, it'd be great to set up a link.
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