It is no secret that Fiorentina has a striker downside. Luka Jovic’s expertise final yr did not utterly fail him, however he barely obtained the go mark, and he could also be on his strategy to Turkey consequently. Arthur Cabral had an ideal couple of months however wasn’t as constant as Vincenzo Italiano would have wished him to be. Probably the most pure factor, then, is for Viola to take a look at the attackers, and who higher than Boulaye Dia, who scored a hat-trick in opposition to them in Could?

The sticking level is its switch clause. Salernitana solely formally purchased it on the primary day of July and Word from Viola News Is that DS Morgan de Sanctis inserted a €25m clause into Dia’s 4-year contract which expires later this month. AC Milan They are also in contact with himso it is a bit upsetting that Daniel Brady and Joe Barron are struggling He was reportedly attempting a low ball The Granata for his providers, bidding €18m and €20m plus bonuses. There’s additionally hypothesis that they might attempt to use Jonathan Ikoné or Riccardo Sottil to tempt De Sanctis into greenlighting the transfer.

The 26-year-old Senegalese worldwide was excellent for Granata final yr, scoring 16 targets (third within the league) and including 6 assists (ranked twelfth) for a complete of twenty-two targets (4th). This implies he has been straight concerned in 22 of his crew’s 46 targets this season, reaching 48%, the best price in Serie A by far (for comparability’s sake, nobody at Fiorentina has been increased than 18%). Maybe essentially the most spectacular striker in Italy this yr fbref numbers.

This was no accident both, because it was a top-level product beforehand. Whereas he achieved solely 5 for Villarreal In 2021-2022 it was principally as a result of he had a knee harm all yr. Previous to that, he had 14 in opposition to Ligue 1 attacking Reims. 4 of these got here in his previous 8 matches, when he took over as full-time quantity 9 with the Teranga Lions.

He even ended up in Salerno nonetheless in shock. Villarreal lower the bait on him final yr, sending him on mortgage to Salernitana for €12m simply to cowl their monetary woes. With a French passport, he is not going to maintain a spot exterior the European Union, and his agent Vadim Vasiliev has hyperlinks to Serie A and Fiorentina particularly, the place he additionally represents former Viola midfielder Jordan Ferretout.

As a participant, Zia is a handful. He’s very fast and, regardless of his smaller body, is robust sufficient to hold the ball round and mix in along with his teammates; This means to drop deep and run within the again makes him very troublesome to play in opposition to. He is fairly a two-footer, scoring 9 along with his proper and seven along with his left foot final yr, and his motion by means of the channels is actually good. His motion on passing is nimble too, however for essentially the most half he is only a very predatory striker: he has a knack for displaying as much as punish even the smallest mistake on the again, as he is aware of Nikola Milinkovic and Igor nicely.

He isn’t an ideal participant, in fact, as a result of nobody is. He isn’t superb within the air and there are questions on his passing and defensive work, though the latter in all probability relied extra on the response and counter-attacking system he was in than the rest. In contrast to a few of the earlier purchases – Abdelhamid Sabiri, Josep Brekalo – this does not seem like a case of viola brass surprised by the strong efficiency in opposition to Fiorentina. This looks like a sensible purchase if Pradè and firm can pull it off.