Well at least it’s a change from those Joe Lolley rumours, which seem to be leading nowhere.
It’s being reported that Wigan Athletic are set to place a bid for Tendayi Darikwa, according to Sun journalist Alan Nixon. Darikwa signed for Forest in 2017, and his value has held steady, as Transfermarkt has his value rising from a believed £990k to now being worth £1.35m.
The Zimbabwe international has two years remaining on his contract, so it’s not imperative that Forest sell him now or risk losing him for free next summer. However, selling him does give Lamouchi an excellent chance to continue his impressive summer window.
Anybody who is a regular on this website knows how much I’ve stressed the importance of the right-back position this summer, and in particular how much I’d love Sam Byram to be the first choice man when the season kicks off.
Whilst it is only an offer at this stage, we’ve seen how Sabri Lamouchi is willing to bring in his own players, and is quite prepared to make wholesale changes to the team to make it ‘his squad’ as soon as possible.
That’s why I believe he’s going to take this opportunity to essentially start fresh and bring in one or even two right backs to compete for the spot. He might even go bold and dip into the academy for someone to take a shot at it, but any chance to basically say ‘no we are doing this my way’, looks to be Lamouchi’s philosophy.
To do that, though, he will need funds to make the moves happen. Whilst £1.35m isn’t a huge fee to work with, it could just be the first stage in pooling resources together to go out and make one big signing – like Sam Byram, perhaps?
Lamouchi has got a very large squad on his hands, and Forest fans are concerned about that, so players have to go before they can be brought in. Although it would leave the position vacant for a few days, a move like this will give Lamouchi the opportunity to get someone fresh in and help Forest in the long run.
