Transfer News and Rumors - January 2026

[pash]

Forgot about Sastre's contract. A shame, I kind of like him (but not enough to think we should re-sign him). Just looked it up and these are our other lapsing-in-June contracts:

• Lovren
• Taison (has an option for another year?)
• Ozdoev (currently on his option)
• Meite (also has an option?)
• Kedziora
• Baba
• Giakoumakis (option to buy)
• Vogliacco (option to buy)
• Sastre
• Ivanusec (option to buy)
• Bianco (option to buy)

My guess is that if Lucescu is still here, we re-sign Taison and Meite. Giakoumakis, I can't imagine us NOT buying him regardless of who's coach. Great signing there. Really hoping we move on Kedziora and Baba; thank you for your service, time to get younger.

[Dutch Eagle]

Must buy Giakoumakis. He has impressive stats in Europe: 4 goals in 7 matches (and not a single one the whole 90+stoppage time). Overall 12 goals in 25 matches (did not check the minutes he played but I don't think he has played whole games). 

He has gelled in perfect and seems to found his freedom (thanks Fats Domino!) in Thessaloniki with his family. 

And he is only 31. A baby according to Razvan.

[pash]

1,496 minutes played, so works out to just under 17 games. Scores every 125 minutes. Someone (our Austrian former podcaster?) mentioned when we first got him that we'd see a high workrate kind of player. Well...that's spot-on. Good call there. He's also pretty entertaining to watch; plays with a similar type of aggression to my boy Pelkas (which I think is a huge positive). I think the sites were saying we had a "reasonable" buy out amount, but I don't think I actually saw any numbers? Either way - BUY THE BOY

 

I forgot when I wrote my previous post that Kedziora has an automatic extension if he plays in 70% of games, which I am sure will happen (barring any shock injuries).

[Blackhawk]

The buyout option is 5 mil. Hopefully we can reach a deal with Cruz Azul at around 3 to 3.5 mil. The other stumbling block will be his salary. Right now he is making around 3 mil (we are paying around 1.8 mil and the Mexicans the rest). I don't see us paying him that much if we sign him outright.

[pash]

If he is serious about returning to Europe, he'll budge on the salary. There is zero chance he doesn't realize how overpaid he was in Mexico.

Five million will be chump change if he leads us to a title (and possible direct qualification to the league stage of the CL). Don't worry my friend, it'll all work itself out. I have foreseen it.

[pash]

It's looking like Sanchez might be a done deal. Some articles earlier in the day were saying his club wanted 4mm for him. Hopefully we're not grossly overpaying. InPAOK says we're giving up a 20% resale rate as well, so maybe we did get him for slightly cheaper.

I believe we have to declare players by the 4th, but he's allegedly arriving on the 5th. So we'd move forward with Sastre as our backup in the EL, I'd assume.

-edit- inpaok now saying the price was 2.5mm + 500k bonus (for 80% of his rights)

Edited 1 hour ago by pash

[Blackhawk]

The deadline is February 5th, 24:00 CET. The team can make 3 changes compared to the League Phase list.

If we sign Sanchez today or tomorrow I expect him to be on the list. He will probably replace Sastre. Also Ivanusec and Chalov will be dropped and will be replaced by Jeremejeff and Zafiris.

In transfer news, according to the Mexicans, Sanchez will sign until June 2029.

Chalov will be loaned to Kaiserispor until the end of this season. The Turkish team will takeover the payments of his contract until June 2026 (around 600K).

Morocon Abde Raihani was released by Seville, and he is close to signing with PAOK 'B'

[PaokCT]

Terrible waste of money. 2.5 mil on a backup?