Atlanta United’s pursuit of Breel Embolo could be in jeopardy.
According to Hugo Delom and Flavien Trésarrieu from L’Équipe in France, the Switzerland international striker has rejected a salary offer from Atlanta United as part of a signing that would rank among the top incoming five transfer fees in MLS history.
If Embolo doesn’t materialize, Delom and Trésarrieu are reporting that Ipswich Town, which won promotion to the Premier League after finishing second in the Championship in 2025-26, “have submitted an offer.” That said, Atlanta United “hasn’t completely given up” on signing him.
While there’s still a few weeks to go in the transfer window, this would be a major blow to Atlanta United after things appeared to be progressing well. On Saturday, Mauricio Culebro told 92-9 The Game that he’d hope to be able to report some good news before too long. Things could change in Atlanta United’s favor, of course, but Embolo heading to Ipswich Town would mean starting over in their pursuit of a No. 9.
More to come, of course, but the clock is ticking. Ipswich will likely want to wrap this up before its season begins against Sunderland on Saturday.
Embolo is once again on his way to Atlanta.
Good. $18 for 10 goals? Get outta here. Nuts.
18M. So ridiculous, I couldn’t even type it right.
According to one site, he actually only scored 8 goals last year. ELL scored 11 the year before we paid $22M for him. It is nuts.
Maybe we should just sign the kid from the 2’s to a first-team deal. Kovac?
There are “excess” strikers at several of the PL clubs that we probably could get on a loan (so long as we don’t insist on an option to purchase) and most of them could fit right into Tata’s system.
Not surprising. I think most players at that level see Atl as a third tier team in a third tier league. The pattern seems clear…unless we’re throwing crazy money around, the interest from even mid tier players will be subdued. IMO the best path to long term success is investment in younger players and sticking with those investments within a consistent football system.
Or a scouting dept that can correctly valuate players…lots of other teams in MLS not making 5 of the 10 most expensive transfers ever and they are doing much better than us.
This feels like Lucy and Charlie Brown playing football and we are Charlie Brown. Swing and a miss with every striker
Skip the big name for the summer transfer, get some veteran strikers in who know how to play MLS and can put the ball in the back of the net, and go find the right person for the job.
We don’t need to keep signing the record transfers either.
There was even a guy on the market recently that is proven in MLS that probably would’ve happily signed with us, but we missed out on him and he signed with the Crew instead.
I don’t think Josef is really a season long 90 min starter and Atlanta needs a 90 min striker.
agreed, but the comment I was replying to was saying to look for a MLS veteran striker who fills the spot well enough while we find the right person to fill the job long term, instead of forcing the issue with Lukakus and Embolos.
Do we though? Most strikers don’t play 90 minutes anyways but i’d argue he’s still capable of putting defenses on notice at minimum, something we haven’t had in a while. It’s all moot now, but just saying.
I’d gladly take some signings like Ronaldo C and Dom Dwyer especially since they were pennies to roster and did exactly what you want from a striker. Not saying they’re long term solutions right now, but in absence of a long term solution, you find viable solutions.
considering how Tata runs things, he wants his players to be playing a full 90 min without any subs
This is why we can’t have even moderately nice things.
None of these options have been that great. From what little I know. I mean clearly better than our backups, but I feel like this is kind of a miranchuk signing. We have a dp spot, so we better sign one, doesn’t matter if they fit or not.
Take the time. Get the right one. Don’t rush. Id rather sign a loan to the end of the year on a mehh striker, then rush and get any of the people they have been talking too.
Workshopping a few comments here:
“Looks like the deal went down, without any real contact.”
“We almost signed him. VAR has overturned the transfer.”
“The transfer didn’t happen, but he’ll make it look like it did.”
“He said no to Atlanta, but I’m sure he’ll say there was contact.”
Always quality replies, but this is on another level. Well done.
I guess Conte was right; he didn’t directly say that reports we’d signed him were premature, but he characterized the whole thing as “close”.
I just hope this doesn’t mean we go to Lukaku or the mid-30s guy who hasn’t scored in a couple years as our fallback option.
Lukaku went to Fenerbahce.
Thank God.
Wasn’t that high on him, so I guess we can now look for a cheaper option.
At this point let’s just sign Memphis or even Icardi at a fraction of the cost through next summer and spend the time scouting long term upgrades at LW and striker.