Espanyol is working in the offices to close the market with at least a couple more additions. One of the demarcations that the white-and-blue entity wants to strengthen is the front, with a goal-scoring striker profile. As ARA has learned, Mamadou Sylla is one of the most liked options in the Spanish sports area, which has not yet submitted any formal offer for him. The goal-scoring ability shown at Girona last season (11 goals and seven assists in 42 games), age –27 years old– and economic conditions –his transfer and salary would be quite affordable– make him a profile that fits quite well. what Espanyol is looking for. He really likes Rufete and also a Vicente Moreno who sees him as a complementary profile to strengthen the attacking point.
In fact, Espanyol already tried to incorporate the Senegalese striker last winter, but Girona did not accept the white-and-blue proposal, which consisted of a transfer with an obligation to buy. The player was looking forward to returning to Espanyol, where he had been for four years, and in fact had come to an agreement for a three-season contract, conditions that could be maintained this summer.
Once Espanyol’s door was closed in January, the parakeet bet on Landry Dimata, who arrived on the last day of the market on loan with a call option that became mandatory if the white-and-white team blue went up to Primera, as it ended up happening. As ARA has learned from sources close to Sylla, Rufete has kept in touch with his agents to keep a close eye on his situation. There has not yet been, however, contact between clubs.
The striker has no plans to make any move to force his departure from Girona, with whom he has one year left on his contract, but admits that Espanyol is an option that seduces him and that he would prioritize over other Primera clubs that also they are interested in it, such as Mallorca, Alava, Cádiz or Rayo Vallecano. “For him it is important to be by his side and he knows the club well”, they admit from the player’s environment, who wants to have a leading role wherever he goes.
The Spanish club, for now, is cooling the interest in Sylla, as, in addition to being one of the alternatives it is studying, it needs to make room for new additions by lightening the payroll. That is, in order to sign a striker, he must first find a destination for players like Vargas or Vadillo. Girona’s coach, Míchel, has him, aware of his goal-scoring ability, but the Girona club would let him out for a figure close to one million euros. An amount that Espanyol could try to cheapen by adding within this operation the transfer of Víctor Gómez, a player who likes Girona a lot. The Girona club has asked Espanyol for the winger, but for now it would be an independent operation.
Four years as a Spanish speaker
Espanyol is a club that Sylla knows well, having played there between 2012 and 2016. Trained in the lower categories of Mataró, he had a brief stint in the Barça squad before joining, at the age of youth, at Espanyol. It only took him a year to make the leap to the white-and-blue subsidiary, where he scored 15 goals in 64 games. Sergio González made his debut with the first team in 2015, at the age of 21.
2015-16 was his first and so far only season in Primera, but he barely played 388 minutes spread over 17 games throughout the course. He scored a goal for Levante in the Cup, but that same summer Espanyol decided to transfer him to the Belgian KAS Eupen, who bought him a property a year later for 2.3 million to sell him a few days later to Glove for 3.85. Sylla was combining transfers to other clubs in Belgium such as Zulte Waregem, Sint-Truiden and Orenburg before ending his contract with Ghent. In 2020, Girona caught him and it was in Montilivi where he regained his best version: last season he became the top scorer of the Girona team.
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