Palermo Claim Javier Pastore is a Wanted Man

Argentine sensation Javier Pastore is the subject of several bids from some of Europe's top clubs if you believe Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini. Zamparini has told the public that Chelsea, Manchester City and Roma are all battling for the signature of the talented midfielder but claims that he is looking to sell for a price of €50million (roughly £44million). It seems unlikely that any of these teams will pay quite this sum of money for the player so lets take a look at why Zamparini values his man so highly.


Pastore signed for Palermo on 11 July 2009 for about £5 million. In his first season for them he played 34 games in Serie A scoring 3 goals and getting 5 assists. Whilst these stats might not seems particularly impressive, he managed to win the Serie A Young Footballer of the Year award indicating that the stats about this boy may not tell the whole story. In the 2010-11 season he manged to achieve a more impressive total from the 34 games he played bagging 11 goals and 4 assists over the course of the season and also managing 2 goals and 1 assist in 3 games in the cup helping Palermo to finish as runners up in the competition. Pastore has also been recognised by his country and has represented Argentina 10 times which is no mean feat at the age of just 22 when he is competing for positions against the likes of Angel Di Maria.


The stats and acclaim show that Pastore seems to be a quality player but they also show that Zamparini is way off in his estimations of the price that he can get for him. The Palermo President has actually claimed that a club has met the asking price for Pastore but I would suggest that this is simply a ploy to entice the other interested managers to increase their bids for the player.

Chelsea are considered the front runners to sign the Argentine by the Italian press despite the fact that Pastore himself has said that he does not have a desire to leave Italy. However, it seems as though Pastore won't be going anywhere unless Zamparini is willing to lower his expectancies regarding his price as Pastore's stats show that he is a quality player but certainly not one that it would be worth spending £44million but with Abramovic and Sheikh Mansour's riches in the mix I suppose anything could happen.