If Trabzonspor were trying to sign Tyler Dibling their opening bid would be about £10 million for a player worth £40 million, as we have found out over the past couple of years, now it seems it's about to happen again as they hover over another Saints player.
Sportwitness Are reporting that the Turkish media are claiming that Trabzonspor are interested in Southampton defender Armel Bella-Kotchap.
Despite having barely played in the last two seasons, either on loan at PSV Eindhoven or last season at St Mary's, Bella-Kotchap who at one time was valued at around 20 million Euros in his first season at Saints, is still got a current value of 9 million Euros according to Transfermarkt
So it is not too surprising that Saints will start the bidding at slightly over that figure at 10 million Euros.
It’s claimed that Trabzonspor have put the Bella-Kotchap at the top of their agenda and it is widely know that Saints are looking to sell as the player enters the last year of his contract.
But as we know from our previous dealings with Trabzonspor, they rarely offer anywhere near the players true valuation and only want to pay peanuts.
So it should be no surprise that their opening offer is said to be 4 million Euros,, less than half his valuation, I can only imagine the looks on the faces of Johannes Spors and our player recruitment team when they saw that this club is once again coming knocking at our door.
Anyone who has been to Turkey will know that you have to haggle for virtually everything that you buy over there and they work on the basis that they can wear you down and eventually you cave in and pay over the top for an article, this is that situation in reverse.
Personally I think we should turn them away and tell the player and his agent that even if we have to sell him to another club for 2 million euros, that we will not deal with them again.