Hull City F.C have signed a loan deal for Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse from Everton, with the option to buy him for £10m at the end of the season, writes Ruairi O’Mahony.
They have agreed to pay the striker’s wages in entirety without any assistance from the parent club.
So what does this £55,000 a week buy them? A total of six premier league appearances with only two starts and no goals since his move at the start of 2016.
Niasse was brought in, during the January transfer window last season for £13.5m pounds from Lokomotiv Moscow in the Russian Premier League. He scored 12 goals and 10 assists in the first half of the Russian season earning himself the Russian Premier League player of the 2015. With this kind of reputation; Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur were high up on the pecking order for his number, but beating them to the post were Everton as they were the first to put in a legitimate bid. A record third-most expensive player for Everton and soon to be know as one of their biggest flops.
Under Everton’s new manager Koeman, Niasse saw 45 minutes of a preseason game before he was brought into the managers office and was told there was no place for him in the first team. Oumar even lost his number and team locker, he was demoted down to the Everton under-23 team where he hasn’t being faring to badly, scoring seven goals in eight games for the second team.
Is this too much of a risk for Hull? Judging a player’s stats from under 23 games is a bold move from the new manager Marco Silva. Understandably desperate, Hull are in a rush to get out of the relegation zone, but this is a move the fans might make them regret.
Hopefully Niasse is able to save the day, or at least salvage it somewhat.