Ridiculous valuation put on Adam Armstrong as he is set to leave Blackburn in new report
Adam Armstrong will move clubs this summer.
The only two questions to be answered are which club the striker will join and how much for.
The second part of that equation is of particular interest to Newcastle United, as after selling Adam Armstrong back in summer 2018 for £1.8m, there was also a sell-on clause inserted in the contract, widespread reports putting that cut as high as 40% for NUFC and certainly not lower than 30%.
So, for Blackburn Rovers it is especially important that they get as high a transfer fee as possible for the striker and key asset, as they look to reinvest in their squad for the upcoming 2021/22 Championship campaign.
Repeated reports have linked various Premier League clubs with Adam Armstrong as he has been scoring for fun and the latest from The Mail names Southampton and Norwich having an active interest in trying to land the former Newcastle United striker.
What caught the eye in particular though, was The Mail claiming inside information that Blackburn are ready to accept £8m if a Premier League club meets that valuation. This has led to a number of follow up articles elsewhere, who are then claiming that Newcastle United could take advantage of both that low valuation AND their sell-on clause, to then sign Adam Armstrong for less than £5m (£8m less 40% = £4.8m.
Hmmm, it is funny that The Mail claim this special inside information that Blackburn are ready to sell for £8m, yet aren’t even aware of and don’t mention the fact that Newcastle United are entitled to a large chunk of any fee banked by Rovers.
The Mail point to only a year left on the striker’s contract as the supposed reasoning as to why Blackburn would be prepared to accept only £8m BUT even if there wasn’t a sell-on clause in place, this makes zero sense.
Adam Armstrong has made rapid improvement and after 16 goals in 40 Championship starts in 2019/20 for Blackburn, increased that to a superb 28 goals in 40 Championship starts in 2020/21. Only Ivan Toney scoring more, 31 in the regular league season for promoted Brentford.
Adam Armstrong signed off for the season with a hat-trick as Blackburn hammered Birmingham 5-2. The previous match he scored against Rotherham and the one before that, another hat-trick, that one against Huddersfield in another 5-2 win. Not a bad way to put yourself in the shop window with seven goals in your final three Championship matches of the season…or indeed of your career, potentially.
An incredible 28 Championship goals and five assists, meaning the Geordie striker has been directly involved in more than half of Blackburn’s 65 league goals this season.
I would argue that Adam Armstrong has actually been even more impressive than Ivan Toney, as whilst Toney and Brentford finished third in the table and went up through the play-offs, Armstrong and Blackburn ended the season 15th, actually closer to relegation than the play-offs.
As for the daft claims of an £8m Adam Armstrong valuation, back in November 2020 the Blackburn CEO was talking about the potential sale of Adam Armstrong (see below) and said that a major factor / complication was the hefty sell-on fee that NUFC will get, believed to be between 30% and 40%.
Blackburn Rovers Chief Executive Steve Waggott speaking to Lancs Live back in November 2020 about potentially selling Adam Armstrong in the short-term or later…:
“I think first we would need to get an official offer from the club and if say for example Leeds United phoned us up in late December, early January saying we have £25m-£30m for Adam Armstrong, then I would say to the owners here’s an offer we need to consider.
“But the key is, who is coming in for Adam Armstrong if you sell him?
“How are you going to use the £30m?
“Yes you could use some towards operational losses but how are you going to build out from losing a player of that magnitude?
“At the moment, if you took him out you’d probably say our promotion prospects would be vastly diminished.
“With Adam Armstrong, this is the third occasion we’ve bought him on the third time of asking, really.
“We brought him in to Coventry from Newcastle and he scored 20 in 40 games there, he was absolutely unbelievable.
“We obviously brought him in again and then we went back to Newcastle to say can we buy him? And we got him.
“We got a good price, albeit with a big sell-on, but he does what it says on the tin.
“When he’s at it, he’s a prolific goalscorer and I would think if any offers came in ‘[for a Blackburn player in January], it will be for Armstrong.
“Goalscorers keep you in jobs, don’t they? They keep managers in jobs, they keep the fans happy and Blackburn had another decent Geordie striker when they won the Premier League way back, didn’t they?
“If he can get anywhere near him he’d have had a decent career.”
The Blackburn CEO was talking about a £25m-30m valuation for Adam Armstrong back in November when he had scored 12 Championship goals, so having ended the season with 28 goals in 40 league starts, it is completely laughable for anybody to believe that Blackburn would now be selling their best player and by far biggest asset for £8m, of which they would eventually benefit by no more than £5m or so!
Last summer, after scoring 26 Championship goals, Villa paid £28m (potentially rising to £33m) for Ollie Watkins. One of many examples of big transfer fees that Premier League clubs have paid for Championship players.
Adam Armstrong will become a Premier League player this summer, he has most definitely earned it. No idea which club it will be yet BUT absolute certainty the transfer fee will be far higher than £8m.
Here’s hoping so, as the much reported Mike Ashley summer transfer budget of around £10m certainly needs all the help it can get from an Adam Armstrong sell-on bonus!
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