If we sign Bakary Sako...

[Zu-Meister]

turkish papers seem to suggest frei transfer near completion. to galatasaray

[HFD Wolf]

Hi all

Wolves Fan here..

Firstly thanks for accepting my request to post onto these forums. I just had to comment on the news that I read this morning that Sako has requested permission to talk to Fulham. This was no big secret as it was posted on twitter about 6 weeks ago by a fellow Wolves player that Sako was going to be moving to Fulham, it just wasn't confirmed by anyone but no smoke without fire and all that.

Last season Sako was without doubt our best player (but competition was low tbh) he's exciting to watch, pacey and knows where the goal is. At times though, usually about 70 minutes into a game, he looks uninterested and goes off the boil but many Wolves Fans believe he just gets burnt out as he is expected to do everything at Wolves (when under pressure kick the ball for Sako to chase).

He looks clumbsy when running with the ball, almost looks like he has lost control or about to fall over (remember Faustino Asprilla?) but generally he gets past defenders and gets in a shot at goal. He can also cross in a wicked ball with pace.

Despite the fact that it looks inevitable that we will lose him, I do not know ANY Wolves fan that wouldn't tap him on the back, thank him for his services and wish him the best of luck at a better placed club than Wolves. Our demise down to League 1 is in no way any fault of his and we all appreciate his efforts to keep us up.

As for Fulham,, If Sako joins you then tbh I think his agent has done really well as he will be well suited to a Club on your level. He isn't good enough to play for your Arsenals or Manchester Uniteds but he is a premiership player. Don't expect much more than a traditional winger who can beat defenders with ease and put in a great cross or run thru a defence from out wide right upto the keeper and slot the ball past him.

There were some suggestions that he might play as a full back or centre mid on here well imho you need to forget that, that's not SAKO.

As for the question is he worth 4 million?? I would say that if you asked Kenny Jackett or any Wolves fan do you want 4 million in the transfer kitty or do you want SAKO to stay? 99% of the time we would opt to keep Sako.

Come on you Wolves  082.gif

[Zu-Meister]

thanks HFD Wolf, pretty much what i expected. whats his work rate defensively like?

[cmg]

Thanks very much for that, HFD Wolf
An honest and useful appraisal. If he comes here I hope he is a great success.
It will be handy if he has some of Faustino Asprilla's skills, but I would hope he is rather less crazy.

Best of luck to you in the season to come.

[HFD Wolf]

Well his work rate generally is very good indeed.

As for his defensive work rate you need to understand that with Wolves playing the way we have we had no real shape. Our defence generally hoofed the ball up field or dilly dallied on the ball, only to lose it and generally conceed (yes we really were that bad).

Providing your club has good shape (which it does) Sako will do whatever is asked of him, whether that be track back or not.

His efforts and committment cannot be questioned, he has just lacked a team around him who actually give a toss and a manager who has been able to control the attitudes of a certain bunch (who are now, finally, being moved on).

It might be worth mentioning that I like to 'socialise' after a match in the pubs both home and away and mix with both home and away supporters. I have lost count of how many times I have heared from opposing fans after the game "If we had that Sako bloke, we would be a much better team".

[Zu-Meister]

ahh thanks for answering. good to know.

[JackyFulham90]

Maybe we can keep all of them as injuries can strike, having 5 good wingers in Kacaniklic, Dejagah,  Duff , Frei & Sako

[Bassey the warrior]

Quite pleased with this if it comes off. The label 'goal scoring winger' is music to my ears. Last season we only had a handful of goal scoring threats: Berba, Petric, Ruiz, Rodallega, Duff, Kaca and Sidwell. Sidders and Rodney are pretty poor at shooting and the rest of them very rarely get in the position to shoot, hence we generally doesn't take many shots per game.
Kaca makes brilliant runs so I see goals in him, Ruiz is a good finisher so I hope he'll get 5-10 goals by playing further forward.
An extra 5  goals could really make a difference.

[filham]

We have Duff, kaca, frei, dejagah, richardson, mesca even Ruiz who can all play wide. We do not need another winger.

You are of course right but remember last season we were struggling to find anyone good enough to hold that wide left spot. All the players you mention were tried plus Rodders and Ruiz but none were a real success . Duff did well but these days is more at home on the right and Kaca had a couple of good matches late on.
A really good left winger who could command a regular place would be a good signing.

I blame jol for a lot of the issues on the left. Riise has faults but almost evey week Jol changing the player in front of him. He even admited he kept dropping Kaca and that may have been a mistake.
Kaca came back from loan and at 22/23 we need to show faith in both him and Frei. Frei had injurus and that stupid loan to cardiff and his season never took off.
I just think with the limited budget we have the priorities are elsewhere and they need addressing first or otherwise we are going to be scraping around come August 31 for cm's with no money.

I agree that the priority should be an attacking midfield general to replace Dembele. Let us hope that players are lined up and that it is only a matter of time before we make a good signing. Unless that position is filled we are in the same mess as last season.

[zschwartz]

thanks HFD for the in depth assessment. i am wondering however if we were saying similar things about dembele as he transitioned from up top to center mid? I do not want to say that they have the exact same qualities but merely some similarity. A wealth of midfield / striking talent were what lead to this scenario developing last time around.  Perhaps we should put his release clause a bit higher than 15m...