Mario Mandzukic has been linked with a shock move to the Premier League with West Ham United but is the Juventus striker heading to England?
The phrase ‘been there and done it’ could have been invented for Mario Mandzukic.
At the age of 33, one of the modern game’s most underrated centre-forwards has scored goals for fun at Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid and Juventus, won trophies in four different countries, netted 33 times for his country and reached a World Cup final.
He’s never played in the Premier League but that could change soon.
According to The Mirror, West Ham United are set to come to Mandzukic’s rescue in January by offering him a fresh start after the battle-scarred veteran was left out of Juventus’s Champions League squad, alongside a clearly infuriated Emre Can.
Questions will inevitably be asked about whether Mandzukic, in the autumn of his career, is capable of making an impact on English shores but the Croatian has never had a yard of pace to lose. His ability to dominate even the best centre-backs in the air, meanwhile, remains undiminished by age.
“In the box, there is no one better in the air in the world. When we get the ball (in the air) he is very, very strong,” Guardiola told ESPN in 2013, during their time together at Bayern Munich.
It tells you a lot about Mandzukic’s quality that Guardiola rates him so highly, despite a 6ft 3ins centre-forward with a snarling spirit and iron elbows looking like pretty much the antithesis of the Catalan’s dream striker.
Bayern chairman Uli Hoeness, after all, called him a ‘sledgehammer’ – not Guardiola’s tool of choice.
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