Blackburn Rovers have administered a £1.5m asking price for Sam Gallagher, who has attracted significant interest from Championship rivals Stoke City.
As per The Sun’s Alan Nixon via his Patreon service, Blackburn will require their seven-figure demands to be met if they are to part with the in-demand forward before the transfer window concludes at the end of next month.
Rovers are yet to make a signing thus far in the summer window, although Leopold Wahlstedt and Semir Telalovic have both been moved on to Aarhus GF and SSV Ulm respectively.
The focus at Ewood Park currently pertains to the future of Sammie Szmodics, who finished as the Championship’s leading goalscorer last term with 27 strikes to his name despite Blackburn’s own involvement in the relegation dogfight and appears likely to seek pastures new in the coming weeks amid interest from newly-promoted Premier League outfit Ipswich Town.
According to a fresh update from Nick Mashiter of BBC Sport, the two clubs remain apart in ongoing negotiations for the time being but the outcome of the Szmodics saga will undoubtedly have an impact on Stoke’s pursuit of Gallagher.
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Blackburn Rovers’ Sam Gallagher transfer valuation revealed amid Stoke City interest
Nixon’s report details that Blackburn are reluctant to lose Gallagher given Szmodics’ uncertain future, with Jack Vale and Harry Leonard currently representing John Eustace’s remaining striking options if the duo both depart.
According to yesterday’s reveal from Pete O’Rourke, Stoke have seen two bids turned down for Gallagher from the Rovers hierarchy, and Nixon has now claimed that an offering of £800,000 has been fielded by Steven Schumacher’s side.
However, the update implies that they’ll need to nearly double their proposal in order to land Gallagher, who has a year left to run on his current contract at Blackburn and was absent from their recent friendly outing against Wigan Athletic alongside Szmodics due to the ongoing interest.
Stoke City may have to look elsewhere in striker search amid Sam Gallagher rejected bid
Despite providing a formidable aerial presence and threat from set plays alongside an ability to interchange and link play by dropping deep, understandable question marks remain surrounding Gallagher’s goalscoring record over the years.
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The 28-year-old has only once surpassed the 10-goal mark in his career, which came with Blackburn all the way back in the 2016/17 campaign as they were relegated from the Championship.
There is little denying that Schumacher requires reinforcements in the Stoke striker stable if he is to direct them towards potential play-off contention in the upcoming campaign, with winger Andre Vidigal finishing as the team’s top scorer in 2023/24 despite scoring just twice from October onwards.
However, there is little to suggest that Gallagher is capable of adequately amending the Potters’ long-term goalscoring issues and they’ve enjoyed much more transfer success in recent times by acquiring unknown, low-cost but high potential talent from overseas and under the noses of some of their second-tier compatriots.
The likes of Wouter Burger, Bae Jun-Ho and Million Manhoef, who has enjoyed a stellar start to life since moving to Staffordshire from Vitesse in February, all provide ample evidence of the efficiency of casting their net outside the sole domestic market and acquiring bargains from foreign shores.
There’s plenty of solid business to be made throughout all realms of the English footballing pyramid, of course, but Stoke’s recent strategy appears to be paying dividends and they’d likely benefit from keeping that in mind and optimising it yet again as a more sustainable and promising alternative to meeting the asking price for Gallagher.
