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Bianchi a big gamble - Manchester City MAD

 

Bianchi a big gamble

Last updated : 14 July 2007 By Ben Collins
We keep hearing that Bianchi was the 4th highest goalscorer in Serie A last season, scoring 18 goals in 37 games to keep Reggina up.

Granted, that's a decent record, but there's a few too many worrying precedents for my liking.

Until last season, Bianchi had scored just 5 goals in 70 appearances. We've paid a fair whack for a striker with one good season under his belt. Ring any bells?

Joe Royle paid a club record £3m for Lee Bradbury in 1998, and look how that turned out!

Until being linked with City, Bianchi was an unknown Italian striker doing all right for an unfancied Italian outfit. Sounds very much like Corrado Grabbi.

After scoring 19 goals in Serie B for Ternana in 2000-01, Graeme Souness splashed out £6.75m to take him to Blackburn and was rewarded with 2 goals in 30 league appearances before Grabbi was offloaded 2-and-a-half years later.

Also, with Bianchi aged 24, Sven sees him as 'one for the future', yet Stuart Pearce made the same gamble with Georgios Samaras just last year and already that signing looks a disaster. We've got £50m to spend, we can afford a proven goalscorer, so why didn't Sven get one?

Sven is said to have been compiling an international database of players since leaving the England job last summer. We thought he was going to go big and this is the best he can come up with!

Rolando could well turn out to be the goal-getter we need - I just hope Sven's done his homework over the last year and not just been sat there getting it all off Championship Manager.