Atletico Madrid have already offered Sevilla €13m for Alvaro Negredo, according to AS.
The 27-year-old was top Spanish goalscorer in La Liga last season with 25 and the report suggests the transfer should happen sometime next week, the player’s representative Juanma Lopez already having met Atleti officials.
Madrid-born Negredo is expected to pen a three-year deal with the capital club as boss Diego Simeone seeks a guaranteed goalscorer to cover the loss of Monaco-bound Radamel Falcao.
Simeone is understood to have been keen on Benfica’s Oscar Cardoza but at three years older than Negredo he was considered too much of a risk, while Aston Villa’s Christian Benteke has also come under consideration.
However, Benteke’s agent Kismet Eris says his client ‘has no wish to leave the Premier League’ and Villa boss Paul Lambert has insisted the club would only part with the Belgian international if they received an offer they could not afford to turn down.
Another advantage for Atleti is that Spanish international Negredo is the property of Doyen Sports, who paved the way for Falcao’s arrival at the Vicente Calderon in 2011. This means that the club would have to pay considerably less for the player’s image rights.
