Arsenal striker, and former Boro loanee, Folarin Balogun has reportedly been valued at £50 million by the London club after they rejected a bid from French side Monaco.
Reports in the Daily Mail online suggest that Inter Milan are also interested in the forward.
The 22-year-old, who earlier this year pledged his allegiance to the US national side, was on loan at Middlesbrough in 2022, under the management of Chris Wilder, but struggled to hold down a regular starting berth in the Championship side.
Someone once said, ‘It’s a funny old game’, and they would be right, with Balogun since enjoying a loan spell with French Ligue 1 side Stade de Reims. He out-scored the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar, hitting 21 goals in a mightily impressive spell last season.
The US international appears to be behind Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah in the pecking order at Arsenal, and now finds himself the subject of intense transfer speculation among Europe’s elite clubs.
It is a far cry from sitting on the bench, watching on as an unused substitute as Boro slumped to a home defeat to Hull in 2022. The striker made only nine starts for the north east club, scoring three goals.
Limited opportunities
It is strange to think that then-boss Wilder largely preferred to use Andre Sporar and Aaron Connolly (now playing at Hull) as his strikers. They only managed 10 goals between them and, in the case of Connolly, he scored only twice in 13 starts. So he wasn’t exactly kept out of the side by prolific strikers.
Surely Balogun could not have envisaged in his wildest dreams that following his spell at Boro, he would be attracting talk of bids from the likes of Monaco and Inter Milan, with sums of £50 million bandied around.
Middlesbrough fans could be forgiven for wondering what if the striker had been given more game time in a side that seemed to struggle for goals. Maybe playing under a different manager, he would not have had such limited opportunities.
In truth, he was a young player in a notoriously difficult division. Maybe it was just part of his footballing education.
It is ironic that Michael Carrick would love to be able to call on a striker of his calibre at this moment in time. Who knows? Maybe one of Boro’s current youngsters will develop into a player of similar stature.