Is APOEL striker Pieros Sotiriou really an Everton target?
By Gary Pearson
The Ishak Belfodil proceedings have stalled considerably in the last week, so it could be on to the next candidate for Ronald Koeman. But is does APOEL striker Pieros Sotiriou fit the bill?
Who is Peiros Sotiriou?
Nobody can be faulted for not knowing who Pieros Sotiriou is. A player very few Evertonians have heard of, Sotiriou plies his trade in Cyprus, with APOEL. The 24-year-old is a Cypriot whose entire professional career has been played in Cyprus.
He is a prolific scorer in Cyprus and has scored 14 goals in 19 games so far this season. But does that scoring record deserve any plaudits? Does it offer insight into how good the player really is?
Not particularly.
It’s a far inferior league so scoring goals in bundles doesn’t have the same impact as it would for other European leagues.
There is some good news, though.
It would probably only cost Everton a few million to bring him to Merseyside. Is an unknown quantity playing in one of the least respected leagues on the continent worth a few million pounds?
It’s a decision Everton Football Club are in a better position to make, but the idea doesn’t seem so farfetched when you consider that Spurs wasted over £30 million on Moussa Sissoko and Liverpool spent about the same on Andy Carroll a few years back.
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Maybe £2 or £3 million for a spry, energetic Cypriot is worth it. I’ll leave that decision up to Koeman and company, though. It’s a bit above my pay grade.
However, I don’t foresee this deal coming to fruition, primarily due to the fact that Koeman is always talking about how he’s solely interested in signing quality players.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Sotiriou fits the bill. But I’ve been wrong before.