Alexander Sörloth has completed his move from Crystal Palace to RB Leipzig for a reported £18m. This is the latest step in the 24 year old Norwegian's career which has already included 8 different clubs in 7 different countries. This has to be one of the strangest career paths which has had a number of purple patches which have lead to transfers that have gone rather badly only to be rescued by another purple patch.
Starting with his home town club of Rosenberg, he was loaned out to naughty word Bodo and scored a hatful of goals in the Norwegian league returning to Rosenberg where his goal scoring slowed down as did his appearances but never the less at the age of 21 he moves to Groningen in the Netherlands for £400k. While getting a decent amount of game time his goal scoring record isn't great and 12 months on Groningen recoup their investment by selling him to FC Midtjylland.
He spends the next 6months tearing up the Danish League and enter the mugs in the game Crystal Palace who spend £8m on him. He flops, well sort of in truth he hardly plays. Then is shipped out to Gent does okay but nothing special only to return to Palace.
Frantically trying to unload him Palace agree a two year loan with a £6m option to buy with Turkish Club Tranbzonspor pat themselves on the back for having extracted themselves from the situation. However during his first season with Trabzonspor Sorloth scores 33 goals which is two more than Palace manage in their Premier League campaign.
Enter RB Leipzig who pay Palace £18m for him as a replacement for Timo Werner. Not entirely sure what deal has been struck with Trabzonspor but I am sure a good chunk of the fee is heading to Turkey.
Will Sorloth succeed in the Bundesliga? I can't say for certain but Leipzig are pretty canny operators and they don't make many mistakes but I will certainly be watching his progress.