CONFIRMED: Saints sign Armando Broja

May as well get this one up with the lad at the training ground...

 

I love the the fact he clearly misses a sitter but didn't want it on the video reel! Go to 2min 23sec and watch the subtle editing!

Anyway, he stands at bang-on 6'3", he'll take us to Europa League, Armando Broja, Southampton's goal machine (maybe getting ahead of myself a bit)!!

 

His parents left Albania. Moved to Slough. Maybe it reminded them of home?

 

Hey, don't diss Slough, it's equidistant between London and Reading!....

 

Deal is done. Loan.

 

Next!!

 

Any option to buy included?

 

Not sure. Just going off a new Athletic report from the Chelsea guy saying it had been agreed by clubs and player.

 

Nice. Like the look of this lad.

 

There aren’t many positive noises about an option which in theory makes it a weirder move for Chelsea than us but I guess if he does well and they want to sell it means they aren’t locked into a price negotiated now and if he does really well they can keep him

Although it seems like the more goodwill we can build with Chelsea the better. As well as showing players we are a good option. Someone before used the term “Poundland Dortmund” which was perhaps a little harsh but the right idea

At the very least he is likely to be one of the first options off the bench due to being both big and quick and direct. So should get a decent amount of game time. But there were surely other places where he would have started every game...?

 

Not many teams play with 2 up front, which probably worked in our favour in terms of him getting game time

 

There was something in the air that night,
the stars were bright, Armando!

 

That's abbariginal

 

If you pop over the the Chelsea channel is seems most of them think they will still go for Haaland next summer despite spending 100m on Lukaku this summer

This tells us that we might actually have a chance for a permanent deal if we want it as the fans clearly aren’t interested in this guy.

But do they really think that Lukaku is going to drop to being second choice this summer? Because no one will be able to afford to take him off them

 

Fingers crossed for this kid. Hopefully he gets a chance off the bench and not when we are desperate for an equaliser with 8 mins left. Great to have a talented backup.

 

I would expect part of the reason certain people were given 8 minutes is because they were, for example, Dan N’Lundulu or an unfit Obafemi who you couldn’t give 20 minutes or more to

 

Normally, there isn't a huge benefit to giving development minutes to other teams' kids, but even with a new contract the odds of Broja breaking into Chelsea's first team aren't exactly spectacular.

So if he performs reasonably well, it's likely in our interest to treat him like our player, because there's a decent chance he could be following the season (but Chelsea won't want to commit to a purchase price in case he does well enough to drive that up).

 

IF
He has a successful first season and we wanted to make it permanent, I think the threat of that not happening would be from a higher offer of a 3rd party and not Chelsea wanting to keep him.
We should have a strong idea by January and league form allowing, try and get a deal sorted asap.

 

The good thing about that scenario is that unless he has a ridiculously good season, it's unlikely that any of the top clubs would be in for him. And so you'd think we'd have the advantage because he would in theory have been given his chance here, have settled in and be enjoying himself. Then it would just be down to Chelseas asking price and I imagine we have been cultivating a good relationship with them which could help our hand.