West Ham United have had second thoughts about signing Luka Jovic from Real Madrid with the La Liga benchwarmer’s £85,000-a-week wages putting off his many suitors, according to Defensa Central.
It’s always handy when you’ve got a £59 million Galactico to bring off the bench – just ask Serbia.
While they might have been denied a place at the European Championships by the fingertips of David Marshall last week, Serbia’s hearts would have been broken a lot earlier if it wasn’t for Jovic’s last-gasp equaliser in normal time.
The former Eintracht Frankfurt talisman has endured a miserable time at the Santiago Bernabau but, clearly, a man Lionel Messi called “magical” hasn’t lost his predatory instincts.
Form is temporary, after all.
Reports from Madrid claim West Ham, AC Milan, Roma and Monaco were all queuing up to offer Jovic a fresh start, hoping the striker can rebuild his reputation away from the Bernabau a la Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart and James Rodriguez.
But unless Jovic is willing to take a pay cut, with his £85,000-a-week wages proving prohibitive in an era of major financial uncertainty, his benchwarming days with Los Blancos are likely to continue.
Furthermore, Madrid will demand a fee of about £2.5 million from any club keen to sign Jovic on loan from January to June.
If the Bosnia-born 22-year-old can rediscover the form that once made him one of Europe’s hottest strikers, having plundered 27 goals for Frankfurt in 2018/19, he will be worth every penny.
But after just six starts in almost a year-and-a-half in Spain, is Jovic really capable of hitting the ground running during a short-term loan spell?
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