Numerous Premier League sides are reportedly in the market for a forward to bolster their squad, so we assess five who could still make the trip to England in the coming days.
Mathys Tel
Hardly unsurprising given his young age (19) and the plethora of attacking talent elsewhere at the club, but Mathys Tel has had to make do with coming off the bench to make an impact for the majority of his first-team career at Bayern Munich.
He started in the UEFA Champions League win over Slovan Bratislava on Wednesday, but just 16 of his 83 competitive appearances for the German giants have come in the starting XI. Overall, Tel has played just over half of his minutes in a Bayern shirt as a substitute (51.8%).
But those sub appearances have seen him make a decent impact overall, scoring 10 goals and assisting five more in 1,281 minutes after coming off the bench. Those 10 goals as a substitute are more than any other player for a Bundesliga club since his Bayern debut in August 2022.
His first goal for Bayern came as a starter, in their 5-0 DFB-Pokal victory over Viktoria Köln in August 2022. That goal saw him become Bayern’s all-time youngest scorer aged just 17 years and 126 days old.
Ten days later, he scored against Stuttgart on his first start in the Bundesliga too, becoming Bayern’s youngest ever scorer in the competition and the fourth-youngest (17 years, 136 days) overall in the Bundesliga behind only Youssoufa Moukoko, Florian Wirtz and Nuri Sahin.
Now, it looks like Tel might be offloaded on loan in January with a view to a permanent move in the summer. A host of Premier League clubs have been linked to the teenager before the transfer window slams shut, with Manchester United, Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea and Aston Villa all reported to hold an interest.
André Silva
André Silva could be a name you see on a Premier League teamsheet soon. Heavily linked with a move to West Ham from RB Leipzig, the 29-year-old has plenty of top-flight experience under his belt.
Silva has made exactly 200 league appearances across the Bundesliga (129), Serie A (46) and La Liga (25), as well as an additional 41 for Porto in the Portuguese top-flight before he moved to Milan in 2017.
His most successful spell undoubtedly came at Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt between 2019 and 2021, where he netted 45 goals and assisted 11 more in 71 appearances. In 2020-21, his 28 league goals for Eintracht was behind only Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski’s 41 in the Bundesliga, earning the Portugal international a big-money move to Leipzig that summer.
The move didn’t bring as much success as his time in Frankfurt, scoring just 27 times in 110 appearances – 18 fewer than at Eintracht, despite playing an additional 652 minutes. Last season saw him join Real Sociedad on loan, but he could muster just four goals in 1,065 minutes for the Basque side.
Dusan Vlahovic
Dusan Vlahovic is a player most fans of Premier League football will be familiar with. This January transfer window isn’t the first in which he’s been linked with a move to an English top-flight club since his impressive 21 goals for Fiorentina in 2020-21 piqued the interest of Europe’s best.
The Serbian also began the next season in sensational form, scoring 17 goals in 21 league games for La Viola before Juventus bought him in January 2022 for a reported €70 million. Now, three years later, Premier League clubs are being linked with a late January transfer window move for the striker.
Since the start of the 2020-21 Serie A campaign, only Inter’s Lautaro Martínez (92) has more goals in the competition than Vlahovic (78). He’s scored seven of those this season but has been improving his ability to find better scoring positions over time. The last two seasons have been his best for non-penalty xG per 90 (0.53 last season, 0.47 this season) – even higher than in his top-scoring seasons in 2020-21 (0.42) and 2021-22 (0.41).
With Gabriel Jesus out for the remainder of the season, Arsenal have been touted as potential suitors for Vlahovic late in this transfer window. Having just turned 25, he potentially has his best years ahead of him, too.
Jonathan David
As with Vlahovic, Jonathan David has been linked to a Premier League transfer on numerous occasions over the years. Now in his fifth season at Ligue 1 club Lille, David isn’t far off reaching 20 goals in all competitions for the third season in succession.
The Canadian striker, who turned 25 earlier this month, has reportedly courted interest from Newcastle United. Looking at his record in France, it’s clear why.
He’s scored 82 league goals since his Lille debut in Ligue 1 back in August 2020 – only seven players across Europe’s top five leagues have scored more in this period. In all competitions this season, David is now only two goals off scoring 20+ for the third season in a row after 26-goal tallies in both 2022-23 and 2023-24. He’s also just one assist away from equalling his season-best tally in all competitions for Lille (8 in 2023-24).
Although predominantly right-footed, one of David’s strengths is his ability to shoot with either foot; since his Ligue 1 debut in 2020, he’s attempted 34% of his non-penalty shots with his ‘weaker’ left foot (54% with his right).
Samu Aghehowa
Samu Aghehowa – or Omorodion as he was known at the time – was reportedly very close to joining Chelsea from Atlético Madrid last summer, but the Spanish striker ended up at FC Porto.
He never actually played a competitive match for Atlético, with Diego Simeone sending him on loan to fellow La Liga side Alavés for 2023-24 to help his development just a few days after signing him from Granada.
The 20-year-old, who now wishes to be known by his mother’s surname, scored eight goals in his first 22 La Liga appearances while on loan, the third-highest tally for an Alavés player at that stage of a season in the competition since the turn of the century.
He didn’t find the net again beyond 10 February, ending the campaign with nine goals in 35 La Liga games, including his solitary strike and appearance for Granada against Atlético on Matchday 1. That may not seem like many, but Aghehowa only started 22 of those games, and averaged 0.4 goals per 90 minutes.
Now, Chelsea are reportedly keen on him again after a whirlwind start to life at Porto. He’s netted 13 goals in 15 league appearances in 2024-25, with only Sporting CP’s Viktor Gyökeres scoring more both overall (22) and from non-penalty shots (15).
His shot conversion rate is a spectacular 32.5% in the Primeira Liga, well above Gyökeres’ 20.3% from non-penalty shots, and higher than all but two players to have scored from at least eight non-penalty shots in the top five European leagues this season (Patrik Schick: 34.2% and Jonathan Burkardt: 33.3%).
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