Been tweeted by a South American football journalist saying that instead of 'close to signing' which I had tweeted, that it should actually be 'deal done'.
He seems to be a well established in the field so I'm confident we've got our man, but he asked I don't reveal who told me as you can imagine!
From what Madeley and Lepkowski, as well as Sam Kelly and Rupert Fryer have said on twitter, it seems personal terms are not the problem. I think we have agreed everything with the player so in that sense it is deal done.
The red tape might relate to wokr permits, and third part ownenrship and that is what is holding up the deal and adds the small element of doubt still around.
Reading what Sam Kelly, Rupert Fryer and Ed Malyon (Argentinian football writers) have said about him, as well as the other reports, he seems to be a very good player. Arsenal have had an interest in him and he was developing very well until this season where he got in trouble for swapping shorts after a game and they stopped playing him. This lack of game time seems to be the reason the window has opened for us to sign him. From the reports, if he can continue developing we will be getting a very high quality player. That's no guarantee of success of course as Valero has more talent than any player on our books but he failed here despite now being a Spanish international sought after by champs league clubs this summer. Id still rather get an argentinian international in.
I cant see us signing both him and doumbia. We have Mulumbu and then we have a lot of attacking central midfielders. If Reid and Jara are here next season, they can fill in as defensive midfielders as well and then you have Thorne and Mantom on our books. It would be over kill to have both.
I understand why people may wan a big strong athletic midfielder as it helps in this league to have those sort of players but I think Yacob is the player with the most quality.