Sturm Graz have confirmed they want to sign Mika Biereth on a permanent deal this summer but they could face competition from Championship side Sheffield Wednesday.
After a successful first half of the campaign at Motherwell, the striker moved to the Austrian Bundesliga on loan in January and helped power Graz to a league and cup double (which he really enjoyed!) for the first time in 25 years.
The 21-year-old scored nine goals and made four assists adding to the six goals and five assists he made in Scotland.
Having struggled on loan in Holland last year, Biereth’s performances have turned heads across Europe and he’s expected to be in high demand this summer.
Wie geht's euch heute? Admin: pic.twitter.com/9whCUOkPp0
— SK Sturm Graz (@SKSturm) May 23, 2024
While it can’t be ruled out that Arsenal will retain the services of the former Fulham player (even though he’s about to enter the final year of his contract), it seems more likely Edu will look to cash his chips.
“Yes, we want to try to sign Mika permanently,” Sturm Graz Sporting Director Andreas Schicker told Kurier.
“There is an appointment with Arsenal next week. Maybe they will quote a price that would be feasible for us. We can push our limits a little higher for a player like that.”
Meanwhile, Football League World claims Sheffield Wednesday are also plotting a move. The Hillsborough outfit missed out on Biereth in January but are ready to try their luck again. Unlike Graz, they can’t offer him Champions League football.
Der Outfit of the Season-Award geht an Mika #Biereth! 😂🏅 #sturmgraz #FotoAtzler pic.twitter.com/ts6YnL3dX7
— SK Sturm Graz (@SKSturm) May 23, 2024
Previously, I used to be like ‘oh, I hope he gets a shot at the first team’ when our players went out on loan. Now, I have complete faith in Arteta and Edu. If they feel he isn’t of the level, then so be it and I wish him well.
The thing is ….city would just snap their fingers and get 20m for a similar player…. we’ll be Lucky to get 5m…..yet to shake our toga of being poor sellers….
Why would we be lucky to get £5m? Good young strikers, even those lacking experience at the top level go for a premium and Biereth is a good young striker. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got £15-20m for him.
Lololol
City have also been doping their academy for a decade so they have a lot of top prospects.
Do you remember how much we sold Balogun for?
Well they have the option to buy their youngsters from one of their many other city group clubs, for an arbitrary amount of free money, which certainly pushes the overall price up of their youth players.
Sturm aren’t exactly playing hardball there… ‘hopefully he’ll be a good price, but if not we’ll just pay more!’
Hahaha
my kind of negotiators
Just wait, they’ll sign Cedric on a free and offer him back to us in exchange.
Sturm have never paid more than 3.9m EUR for a player. So when they say that they will go out of their way for Mika, probably they mean they will spend 4 million. Maybe 5.
I think that maybe we can reach 7m transfer for him, but not from a club from Austria.
the key will be the sell-on fee (as well as any first refusal) and not the actually transfer fee we will receive.
If he’s Haaland-esque in his time in Austria, Strumz and indirectly Arsenal could see him move to somewhere like Dortmund or Leipzig for a healthy fee
Indeed. Maybe not Haaland, but Sturm have done the resale exercise with none other than Rasmus Højlund. Bought for 2m, sold him for 20m half a season later.
Haaland, Højland, pretty much the same, right?
Man U for sure thought so.
This joke is Biereth of humour
I thought it could Mika difference.
That’s the spirit.😃
His humour deserted him momentarily but I’m sure it’ll Biereth back
Nice play on words.😃
They don’t have much money, so their best would still perhaps be not enough. I was hoping Mika would get a chance on the preseason tour, but if he is sold I hope there’s a hefty sell on clause and a buy back, as I think he’s a really good young striker.
I also enjoy young prospects given the chance to shine and to fight for squad status. At the same time, we have to learn to sell. Lat year we had a similar conversation around Balogun, but in hindsight, I think nobody is angry that we miss him and his 8 goals for Monaco. The 30m we received for him, however, were important.
Bieteth is much better than Balogun ever was, and not such a big head.
That’s a bold statement!
Great Hector Bellerin costume
“Der Outfit of the Season-Award”–I had no idea that German was such an easy language to learn.
dass Sie abwarten müssen und sehen müssen,
If you’re a native English speaker the only difficult parts are gendered words and the compound nonsense Germans love.
I think this may count as a whoosh.
only those and the accusative/dative/genitive cases, the umlauts, article declensions, adjective endings, subjunctive tenses, sentence structures, and the variable, completely logic-less conversion of singular to plural. Once you get past those it’s pretty easy.
I like Sturm Graz.
Edu should do them a solid.
£15m, with a 45% sell on clause.
Everybody wins.
Drogba started professional football at age 22 at a time Henry has already won WC 1998 at age 21 and scored seven goals in CL for Monaco. I have great expectation for Biereth. For some players, the sell-on clause is where the money is.
Insert a buy back clause, Edu.
Can sell cheap but have 20% sell on clause for future transfers if he do make it big later on. Some players are late bloomers you never know eg. Wrighty and Drogba
I understand why people get excited about young players, I really do, especially if they score lots of goals, but this guy is just not the droid you’re looking for. This is what I see on tape at 3 different clubs: -Unsustainably high recent conversion rate inflates perception of his game: 8 goals for strum off 1.6 shots per game in 18 appearances. A top striker in that league should be having twice that many shots. -Impressive strong foot ball striker, good improvised finisher even through contact, certainly can score at all levels -Underwhelms physically even against weaker competition despite… Read more »
Interesting how the Championship is equivalent to so many domestic top tier leagues in Europe. Viewership and wages for sure can match teams who are in the Champions League.
Does it help his cause to become a top footballer?
Would a Premier League team prefer a player performing well in Championship for a season or in the Champions League for 6 games