Boro chief executive Keith Lamb has revealed that the club came very close to bringing in Vagner Love.
Love, 23, is a striker currently playing for CSKA Moscow, however Lamb told how only a technicality prevented him becoming a Boro player last month.
‘No one should doubt our ambition or our willingness to bring the highest quality players here if we feel they are right for us,’ said Lamb.
‘The truth is we made attempts to sign both Fred and Vagner Love who, like Afonso Alves, are top quality Brazilian international strikers.’
Lamb detailed exactly how close the club were to signing Vagner Love, currently Brazil’s first-choice striker.
He told the club’s official website, ‘Love was ready to sign for us even on transfer deadline day but he didn’t qualify for a work permit and we just ran out of time before the deadline.’
However, Lamb underlined the club’s promise to continue investing in quality on-field talent.
He continued, ‘If star players tick all the right boxes for us in terms of what we are looking for then we will be in there fighting to bring them to the Riverside.’
‘We take talent as read, but we are also looking for players with ambition, with the right application and, most importantly, who want to play for this football club.’
Despite the confusion and complicated nature of Alves’ transfer to Boro, Lamb insists it was made all the more easier by the player’s willingness to play for the club.
‘There were protracted and at times difficult negotiations. We beat off some intense competition to sign Afonso, as he was wanted by top clubs from the Premier League and Europe,’ Lamb went on.
‘But the one constant throughout all the twists and turns that the negotiations took was Afonso’s stated desire to play for Middlesbrough. He reassured that from the moment he came over and met Gareth that he only wanted to play for us.’
Finally, Lamb praised chairman Steve Gibson for his work on the transfer, and encouraged the supporters who have stayed away from the Riverside recently to return to what could be a special era in the club’s history.
He said, ‘I’d like to put it on the record that I am grateful to Steve for making it possible for us to sign a player of Afonso’s quality, and I’m sure the supporters appreciate it too.’
‘Steve has shown his belief and commitment in abundance. What we need now is for the fans to get behind what we are trying to achieve. Those who have been turning up week in and week out have given us wonderful support, but it goes without saying that we want more fans.’
‘There are many fans out there who have perhaps not been attending games but our message to them is that we want them to come back and support the club.’
‘These are exciting times so let’s all get behind the team and see just how far we can go.’
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Now no-one can question our ambition, just to know that we were so close is good news but it would have been fantastic if we got him aswell.
i’m not sure we could have afforded him though! how much do you reckon he’s worth? at least 5m, surely?
More than £5m. Maybe Southgate would have been dipping into this summer’s transfer kitty
Definitely more than 5 million. Russian teams are very, very rich and don’t need transfer money to survive. I reckon they would have wanted 8 million at the very least. I think that it’s a good thing that we didn’t sign him at this point. Alves is good enough to fill in for now. If it’s needed we can always sign Love in the summer, but the way he plays reminds me of Mido and I think that we don’t need another one like him for now + there would be way too much competition for places in the attack.
Have been very impressed with him when i have seen him play for CSKA on TV. I thik we have enough up front with Aliadiere + Tuncay continuing to impress me week in week out, aswell as the 2 big boys in Alves + Mido.
…for now that is
Yeah I agree. Two Brazilian strikers may have been over-doing it a tad. As well as giving most Boro fans a heart attack.
I smell a rat. Gibson said that Vagner Love didnt qualify for a work permit, when surely if he didnt qualify automatically, which is debatable, i dont know how many of the 75% of internationals he’s played over the last year… he definatly would of qualified on appeal given the amount of games he has played for brazil over the past year and his international pedigree. I think it was either Alves or Vagner, not both.
I think time ran out for us to apply for a work permit and put our case together for the appeal as he wouldn’t have qualified automatically.
Perhaps Mr Anderson has a point though. Maybe the club were interested in brining in Vagner Love, but I don’t think it would have been financially possible to sign both him and Alves. I think this statement from Keith Lamb is a clever bit of PR work myself.