Preston North End`s striker Dave Nugent is considering offers from Sunderland and Portsmouth who were both successful in making bids for the player last Friday when PNE agreed to allow talks to take place with their player.
It is believed though that Sunderland were the only club to have actually spoken to Nugent so far and they have allegedly offered considerably less for the player than Pompey have. Preston`s Chairman, Derek Shaw, said and referred to Sunderland – ‘Of the two clubs we gave permission to speak to David, we believe he met one on Friday. We are not sure at this stage if he has met the other club. We have been informed that David has now gone on holiday for a week and we are hoping to get an update from his representative.’
The major issue for Pompey – provided they are actually interested of course – is the financial power of Everton who may well come in from the back and snap the player up with a late bid. For Portsmouth to avoid this, Harry Redknapp and Peter Storrie will have to break their tradition of leaving it all to the last minute and actually place a bid on the table and sign the player.
Too often in the past the Club has missed out as a result of being slow off the mark; having missed out on Kanuote, Yakubu not likely to return to Fratton Park and Nicolas Anelka looking to return to Arsenal, Harry can ill afford to place all his eggs in one basket and land yet another African based player. With the African Cup of Nations due to start again next January, a couple of non-African players will be needed to avoid a mass exodus of players from Fratton Park after Christmas for a month.
Preston North end may well demand a high fee for the services of Dave Nugent, but at £7 million he is still a good investment – having played for England, he is more likely to be able to step into Premiership football than any African player where football is not always as high a standard as some Championship status clubs over here.
Perhaps its time to stop trying to look for cheap deals and to start signing recognised goalscorers – or is Pompey to be the EasyJet and RyanAir of Premiership football?
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