Cagliari striker Giovanni Simeone has admitted that he would like to try his hand in England after catching the eye of Leeds United and West Ham, while speaking to the Guardian.
If Leeds had made their move a few days earlier, perhaps Simeone would already be playing Premier League football.
Cagliari president Tommaso Giulini told Football Italia in September that Marcelo Bielsa’s side had made an approach for his £14 million striker during the final few days of the summer transfer window.
The Serie A outfit were never going to let Simeone go, however, with so little time to find a replacement.
“It’s too late, there wouldn’t be time to replace him,” Giulini explained.
Four months later, it was West Ham who came calling for the 25-year-old Argentine. Gianluca di Marzio reported that the Hammers saw Simeone as the ideal replacement for the Ajax-bound Sebastien Haller.
But, while big-money moves to Elland Road or the London Stadium failed to come to fruition, the Sardinians will know, deep down, that Simeone will not be the King of Cagliari forever.
His current club are facing relegation from Serie A and, should they succumb to the drop, Simeone will almost certainly depart.
Could the Premier League be his destination at long last?
“You have to be ready for whatever comes: he who survives is he who adapts, not he who plans,” said Simeone, who shares that burning ambition with his father Diego.
“I always told my old man that the best football now is English football. I also think it’s a football where I could really make the most of my qualities.
“It’s very attractive, a place I’d like to try. Maybe I’d fit in.”
Leeds and West Ham are still in the market for a new centre-forward given the paucity of number nines available to Marcelo Bielsa and David Moyes.
And Simeone, aggressive, technically-gifted and prodigiously hard-working, certainly looks tailormade for the lone-striker system under two managers who demand a lot more from their chosen centre-forward than just putting the ball in the back of the net.
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