Arthur Cabral appears to be in the sights of Atlanta United once more.
The 26-year-old Benfica striker was a target for Atlanta United in December before a €15M (US$15.7M) bid was reportedly rejected. Now, according to Record in Portugal, Atlanta have prepared a new bid: €16M plus €2M in add-ons, or just shy of US$20M. Should the deal be completed, it would be a record transfer fee for an incoming MLS player.
Atlanta’s renewed bid is closer to the €20M (US$20.97M) price tag Benfica reportedly placed on Cabral, who it purchased from Fiorentina ahead of the 2022-23 season on a deal through June 2028 for a reported €20M plus €5M in add-ons. He currently has 6 goals for Benfica through 23 matches across all competitions this season. In 2023-24, he scored 11 times in 43 matches.
Of course, Atlanta are in the midst of potentially finalizing a $22M transfer for Middlesbrough striker Emmanuel Latte Lath, but that process is “stuck” according to Tom Bogert and Ben Jacobs. Garth Lagerwey noted that Atlanta didn’t want to “put all (its) eggs in one basket” in an interview with 92.9 The Game on Thursday, so a potential pursuit of Cabral makes sense should the Latte Lath deal not work out for any reason.
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Boro fan here –
Alternative Striker suggestion for you if the Latte transfer falls through.
There’s a young striker playing for Peterborough united in the EFL League 1 called Ricky Jade-Jones https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky-Jade_Jones
At first glance his stats look unimpressive, but he is playing for a struggling team so scoring chances are few and far between for him.
However his is only young and awesomely fast, still raw (Diamond in the rough) but improving all of the time and some of the biggest clubs in England and on the continent are monitoring / scouting his progress.
If Atlanta wanted to take a gamble on him you could potentially end up with a superb striker for a relative pittance.
Heard anything about Latte’s injury?
Local sources say it’s a slight groin strain and not expected to keep him out of contention for long.
Reading stuff today that strongly indicates the Latte deal is all but dead. Miggy will be officially announced in 48 hours, though.
Boro fan here –
Just for info – as per official press releases earlier this month Middlesbrough accepted your offer and gave permission for your club to discuss terms with Latte. So presumably any delay in finalising the transfer is down to one of the following.
1) Latte / his agent struggling to agree the financial terms of a contract with Atlanta
2) Green card / Immigration issues.
3) Latte hoping for a move to a club in one of the top European leagues.
Also,
As per our recruitment model, we actually signed a younger replacement striker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Conway last summer who has already proved to have the same ability as LL.
In addition to Tommy we have Marcus Forss (Finish international Striker) who has just returned from injury.
And this week we have just signed the highly rated Morgan Whittaker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Whittaker who can play in any of the front three positions.
We also have our young prospect Josh Coburn out on Loan learning his trade who is also highly thought of after scoring against Premier League Tottenhan.
In short we have plenty of strikers available, and as a club our model is to improve players and sell on at a profit so once the offer was accepted any delay / cancellation of the transfer would not be caused by Middlesbrough.
Hear me out: pull out of the ELL deal, sign David Strelec (Middlesbrough’s preferred ELL replacement) for 8 mill, and give em the double duece as we walk away.
Boro fan here
Boro don’t wait for a player to leave before signing a replacement, it’s more of a conveyor belt with us signing younger players with potential to act as cover for the established players, who then become the first choice when somebody such as Latte is sold on for a profit.
We signed Tommy Conway as cover for Latte Laths last Summer, and after the first 1/2 of this season he has proved to be a more than able understudy, he’s still developing but if anything he is a more clinical finisher than Latte. His international performances for Scotland have been very good as well. (High lights on youtube if your interested)
Not excited about this. If I were ELL I would have danced around that field and barely done anything if I thought there was a chance at coming here. Oh well. There goes that idea. Lost our Japanese option early on. Our other option said no. I feel like we are settling at this point.
It’s clear that Middlesbrough doesn’t want to sell ELL, playing him until the last second… if it’s a fairly serious injury (which I hope it isn’t), it’s a lose/lose situation. Time to move on and find a team that actually wants to transfer the right way.
He’s the third option. ELL is still dragging on (and now has a groin injury to complicate things,) the second choice EPL striker said no to MLS. So they’re upping their next choice in line to guard as best they can against coming away with no one up top.
Hopefully it’s just precautionary. I’m sure he was told if he feels ANYTHING is remotely not right to sub out ASAP.
Anyone know how serious the injury is/looked?
The reporting of the injury makes it sound like a hammy (no contact and immediately grabbing the upper portion of the leg). We’ll know in the next few days, but if it is a hammy, doubt the transfer will occur.
Looks like it is indeed a groin as per the manager. Not sure how severe however.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/football/michael-carrick-gives-middlesbrough-injury-and-transfer-update-amid-emmanuel-latte-lath-concern/ar-AA1xRdpw?ocid=BingNewsSerp
If everything falls apart with the 9s, we can now make a cash offer for Josef under the new rules right?
I don’t know if Josef can be traded when he has just signed with San Jose
Wow, that’s a bad look for Middlesborough. Playing with fire and got burned.
Good. Put some pressure on Boro.