West Bromwich Albion have turned down a transfer request from Saido Berahino, their England Under-21 striker, and reaffirmed their stance that selling the 22-year-old is “simply not on the agenda”.
Berahino was the subject of a £15 million bid from Tottenham last week — turned down out of hand by Jeremy Peace, West Brom’s chairman — and the White Hart Lane side are expected to return with an improved offer, while Manchester United are also believed to be monitoring developments.
The striker was omitted from the squad to face Chelsea on Sunday because Tony Pulis, the head coach, felt that weeks of “15 clubs saying things, doing things” had served to disrupt the player’s focus.
Berahino, scorer of 14 league goals last season, submitted a written request to move yesterday, hoping to force West Brom’s hand before the final week of the transfer window, but the club refused to accept it. A statement on the West Bromwich Albion website said that the club’s position remains unchanged and they were “going forward with Saido very much in our plans”.
West Brom do, at least, have a potential replacement for the striker in situ should Peace eventually receive an offer that he feels is too good to turn down, after the club’s record signing, Salomón Rondón, impressed on his first home outing against Chelsea. The Venezuelan created their first goal and drew the foul for which John Terry, the visiting team’s captain, was sent off. It was a fine first impression, but the 25-year-old believes there is more to come.
Advertisement
“I feel good, I feel comfortable here,” he said. “It is a very physical, very fast sort of football but it is similar to Russia [where he played for Rubin Kazan and Zenit St Petersburg] in terms of the amount of contact. It is a type of football that suits me.”