Arsenal’s hope bringing aboard a globally acclaimed number 9 has faded away a little more, after it was announced that long term target and Argentina international Gonzalo Higuain under went a medical with Juventus officials.
According to Skysports, the Napoli hitman has under gone his medical already, while his current club and Juventus are reportedly locked completely in negotiations over a potential deal, in the region of £79m.
With Athletico Madrid, Arsenal, PSG have all been interested, it seems now that the Napoli hitman, who scored a record 36 goals last season in the Serie A, is destined to join Napoli’s rivals Juventus.
ESPN reported a few hours ago that Juventus boss Max Allegri kept mum during a press conference in Melbourne, when asked about the transfer updates surrounding Paul Pogba ( to Manchester United) and Gonzalo Higuain ( from Napoli).
When asked about these transfers, here is what Max Allegri had to say:
“As I said before, I’m not going to talk about transfer news,” he said. “We just had a game. I’m not sure what’s happened in the transfer market during the last few days, so once again I prefer to have questions during the game.”
Allegri, spoke to the media after his side lost to Melbourne Victory in the International champion’s cup.
All said and done, there is plenty of debate on the validity of Higuain’s transfer fee. Is he really worth £79m? Transfer fees, or a player’s ‘worth’ or a ‘right price’, these are in more than one way, difficult and extensively vague territories to walk into.
It is interesting that a player’s quality and worth must be , in the minds of football fans, so close and/or synonymous with his market price. In other words, must a player’s transfer fee be so directly proportionate to his quality as a footballer?
Yes, Gonzalo Higuain did become the most successful striker in the history of the Serie A. He scored more goals than any other player in Italy ever. All said and done, such a price tag puts him in the same league (going by the relationship between the two things mentioned above) as Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Whether any player must be worth this much is a larger discussion that has been ongoing for a while. One reason why such a transfer fee has been justified by many has been the dirth of top quality number 9s that are available in the market at the moment.
The other of course, has to do more directly with possibly the biggest deal in football history; Paul Pogba to united, which explains the big money spending by Juventus.
It is unfortunate that such an inflated market price must determine not just the quality of a player but also where he ends up.
Gonzalo Higuain could have been a great signing for Arsenal. Juventus, however, are a bigger club who are offering more than Arsenal are for the player, and unfortunately, there is no amount of debate or discourse that can in any way influence or change that fact.
