Fulham have identified Gent’s £25 million-rated centre-forward Gift Orban as Aleksandr Mitrovic’s replacement after the striker missed out on a move to Premier League giants Tottenham Hotspur.
When Tottenham eventually got cold feet over a big-money, late-summer deal for one of European’s football’s most talented young forwards, you almost could have heard the creak of the hinges as the door swung open for a number of other striker-chasing clubs.
Fulham, for instance, still have an Aleksandr Mitrovic-shaped hole in their frontline.
Raul Jimenez and Carlos Vinicius have done their best in the Serbian’s absence – the latter in particular – but neither looks capable of matching Mitrovic’s tally of 14 Premier League goals across 2022/23.
Gift Orban, then, would have big shoes to fill. Literally and metaphorically, the towering Mitrovic a man keenly missed at Craven Cottage.
Fulham eye Gift Orban after losing Mitrovic
Orban’s record speaks for itself, even if his form has taken a dip since that aborted move to Tottenham two months ago. He won Norway’s Golden Boot award with Stabaek in 2022 and took that prolific streak with him to Belgium, scoring 26 times in 34 games since joining Gent in January.
Gent are now asking for £25 million; CEO Michael Louwagie making it clear that the latest in a long line of prolific Nigerian poachers will not be going anywhere on the cheap.
“Why do Ajax and PSV sell players like Antony for 95 million euros and others for easily 40 to 50 million?” Louwagie asks, speaking to Het Nieuwsblad.
“And why should we think that 30 million euros is too much (for Orban), even though the competition here is at least as good (as in the Dutch Eredivisie)?”
26 goals in 34 games
It’s a fair point.
Orban is far from the finished article at just 21 and there will be questions asked about whether an outstanding return in Norway and Belgium can be replicated in England. But with Fulham in need of a goalscorer, Orban’s staggering numbers mean he feels like a punt worth taking.
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