The £19m striker transfer target Ipswich Town should stay well clear off

A striker from the continent who scores goals freely has been linked to Ipswich; but will he be able to keep the team in the Premier League? The Tractor Boys have an even more difficult task ahead of them: maintaining their Premier League status.

Last season, Ipswich Town accomplished something quite extraordinary by being promoted to the top division. That will most likely need some cunning work this summer in the transfer market, and rumors have it that they’ve already found their first target in the form of the prolific Fotis Ioannidis of Panathinaikos.

The 24-year-old international striker for Ipswich, who scored 23 goals in 44 games for his club last season and tallied twice for the national team, including a goal against France, is apparently the target of a bid of €22.5 million (£19 million) that the Greek team rejected.

An enhanced offer might be on the way, but Ipswich might have some fierce competition: reports have it that both West Ham United and Portuguese champions Sporting are considering offers; O Jogo, a Portuguese media publication, recently stated that Sporting would be Ioannidis’ personal choice. Put otherwise, Ipswich might lose out on their man.

Over the previous year, Ioannidis has not been missing all that much. Prior to the current campaign, the striker’s greatest result was seven goals in 42 appearances. However, something clicked for the player this year, and he started hitting goals that he may not have even considered previously.

He was never particularly prolific before the 2023–24 season. Along with showing significant improvement in his first touch, mobility, and passing, he also picked up seven assists, most of which came from dropping deep to gain ball and slide in other attackers to score.

His off-ball qualities are noticeable, and he’s happy to find spaces all over the space in front of the penalty box from one flank to the other in order to provide a passing option – and now he’s taking full advantage of those positions both to create and score goals in a way he wasn’t doing before. He can’t be described as a first-rate technician, but he’s beating defenders far more often and generating far more chances for himself than he could before.

Thus, there is a great deal of interest in hiring him. Although Panathinaikos has a contract with him through 2027 and is obviously not in a hurry to sell, Premier League teams will probably have the financial wherewithal to coerce them at some point.

While Nathan Broadhead, Ipswich’s leading scorer with 13 goals in the Championship last season, and players like Conor Chaplin will need to be supplemented with goals, there’s a potential that losing out on Ioannidis won’t be as devastating.

For starters, nine of his 23 goals came from the penalty spot. An expert penalty taker isn’t to be sniffed at, but there is still only a small body of evidence to suggest that he can be prolific from open play – just 15 goals in the last two years in the Greek Superleague. Given that there is unquestionably a gulf between that level and the Premier League, it’s reasonable to question whether he would be the 10-15 goal striker a newly-promoted team often needs to survive.

He might show that he can move it up a notch, but spending so much money on a guy with so many questions about his game would be risky for a team that needs to make their transfers work in order to survive a season in this very tough league.

Although he possesses many positive traits, an outstanding work ethic, and the strength and passing ability to be a valuable link-up man, it remains to be seen if he can be the player who scores the goals that keep a team in the lead.

Maybe Ipswich will find out next season, and maybe Ioannidis’ growing confidence in front of goal will allow him to develop into an even more potent striker in the future years.

Perhaps Ipswich would regret not shelling out the cash to get him to Portman Road, but Ioannidis is far from a lock, so Kieran McKenna might be content to miss out on this transfer.