Aleksey Miranchuk to Atlanta United appears to be all but a done deal.
Tom Bogert is reporting that an agreement is now in place between both club and player that will see the Atalanta midfielder make the move to Atlanta. While initial reporting from Fabrizio Romano stated that Atlanta will pay “close to €15M” (US$16.2M), Bogert reports that the transfer fee is closer to US$13 million, putting it within the top five highest incoming transfer fees in MLS.
Miranchuk scored three goals and six assists in 1,171 minutes (15 appearances, 12 starts) for Atalanta in Serie A play last season. Across all competitions, he totaled four goals and 12 assists in 1,851 minutes, working out to a goal contribution every 154.25 minutes. Atlanta United is banking on him playing to the potential he showed in Italy, this time as a full-time starter.
Miranchuk’s apparent imminent arrival — presumably on a Designated Player contract — not only means a major piece of the puzzle within Atlanta’s roster has been filled, but he matches the prototype of DP Garth Lagerwey desires to bring in: a “prime-age player” who could potentially be in Atlanta for the long haul.
Atlanta will still look to the transfer market to add a striker, despite rumors around that drying up significantly. For now, though, they appear to have found their No. 10.
Gianluca Di Marzio was first to report Miranchuk’s agreement to come to Atlanta.
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[…] international roster spot, you ask? Well, if the Five Stripes were actively in the market for a certain Designated Player making the move from Atalanta, they’d certainly need an international roster spot to make room for his addition. This may […]
[…] reports seem to indicate that one of those slots will be filled by Atalanta attacking midfielder and Russian international Aleksey Miranchuk, which would check the “new No. 10” box. However, there are no real rumors for who that […]
Hope he’s a player that will fit the preferred system of whoever the new coach turns out to be.
Let’s here your thoughts, Zontar. You always have some perspective of other league’s players.
I’m hesitant to get too excited about this signing yet, but can’t wait to see him hit the field. I question why he wasn’t a full-time starter despite his stats? His speed is also questionable.
Oh no. What’s up with our club not caring about speed? Am I wrong to think that most goals in mls comes from one team being faster?
Darlington Nagbe couldn’t outrun Dax McCarty.
I think the talk of Miranchuk not being fast is overblown and possibly not even accurate. It kind of doesn’t matter as long as the ball is moving quickly and he’s playing to the speed of the guys around him. And, we have a lot of speed on this team. Our FBs are fast (Wiley was as well, hopefully, Amador is, too). Silva, Thiare and Saba have plenty of pace. They were terrorizing the CBus back line on counters, especially in the first half. Hopefully the new striker is fast. Muyumba is plenty fast and Slisz is fine for CDM. I think the real issue is we didn’t really maximize the speed by utilizing the slow build up under Pineda. This team should be running when it can.
From the little I’ve seen, he seems to be more of a 9/10. Kinda like Cucho
Yeah, I believe he’s primarily a CAM, but has played some center forward and wing in his career. I think this is a good signing. His creation numbers per 90 are elite in Europe and even his G+A/90 is solid. He looks really smooth on the ball (of course everyone looks great in their highlights), but he seems like someone that can make direct impact to G/A numbers but also is good at setting up others to make the assisting pass. I also like that he’s bigger than a lot of CAMs at 5-11/6-0 and about 160-165#.
Interesting trivia: he has a twin brother, Anton, who has played his entire senior career under Lokomotiv (he did get loaned out one season). He’s also a CAM with some wing experience and it appears he’s out of contract right now…
Honestly, we could use the depth, sign him at 1m a year using part of the Wiley money and call it a day.
We’ve got defensive depth (wingbacks aside), we’ve got decent midfield depth once we get a CAM; if you add a flex CAM/winger and starting striker, this squad would be very deep.
I mean. If he’s “kinda like Cucho” sign me up man.
I hope I’m correct. In any event, I’m not a striker/post up/ hold up type of player fan, I think moving around attackers is a more effective way to deal with MLS center backs. Even though GG scored several goals, to me, it seemed he could not operate when confronted with better CBs and then he could not do anything else. Just my opinion
I don’t think GG was prepared for CONCACAF/MLS levels of physical abuse. He expected fouls that would have been given in Europe that are not given here.
Agree. For whatever reason, he just was not getting service in dangerous areas this year like he did last year. Agree that teams started coming in with plans to mark him out of the game, and it worked a lot of the time.
Lets go! Get him on the field ASAP!