Villarreal tried to get Bakambu back, have now moved on

Even with the tremendous arrival of Fer Niño and his record breaking debut, Villarreal is still looking for attacking reinforcements. The football romantic in me dislikes this greatly. I want to see the magical story continue and have Niño secure his place as a La Liga player immediately. However, to rely on that happening would be very risky. The ever reliable Javi Mata reports, via AS, that the club tried to bring back Cedric Bakambu from China. Bakambu was willing to come back, but his club prevented it. He is still young enough that I think such a move would have worked out tactically but I guess you can’t always come home again.

The other option that has been explored is Torino Striker Simone Zaza. The Italian has been pretty quiet since leaving Valencia, and I’m not really sure he puts us in a situation that would keep us from having to buy another forward next year, so I’m really not thrilled about the link.

understat.com

That’s bang average goalscorer who can’t get a strong number of minutes in a team that frankly we are better than. He’s stuck in behind Belotti, who you’ve heard of because he had one brief run of form that caught everyone’s attention, but who hasn’t even been that good a striker since that time.

Mata’s piece insists that the club is willing to wait until this summer to address the need, which I think is the Niño effect, and I’m hopeful that they won’t pull the trigger on something rash just to say they signed a 9. It doesn’t seem the club had a plan they were truly confident in when they let Toko Ekambi walk to Lyon, and that’s disappointing, but I’d rather wait than do something that complicates the wage bill going forward without truly improving the squad.