Salernitana striker Boulaye Dia is starting to find his best form again after missing out on a Wolverhampton Wanderers move.
Pretty much every football manager around would want another striker.
That was Gary O’Neil before the summer transfer window slammed shut, but Wolves couldn’t get a new goalscorer in.
O’Neil is getting the best out of Hwang Hee-chan and Matheus Cunha though, with Sasa Kalajdzic offering an option from the bench.
Kalajdzic scored the winner at Bournemouth on Saturday, but it all could have been so different had Wolves signed Boulaye Dia…
Wolverhampton Wanderers missed out on signing Boulaye Dia
Wolves made a late push to sign Senegal international forward Dia from Serie A side Salernitana.
Fabrizio Romano reported ahead of transfer deadline day that Wolves made a bid for Dia, but Salernitana rejected it immediately.
Romano then added that Salernitana completely dropped Dia from their squad because of his reaction to the bid being snubbed.
It was clear that Dia wanted a move to Molineux but the story took a rather unsavoury turn.
Salernitana director Morgan De Sanctis claimed that Wolves only offered a loan with option to buy and that he would cause a ‘diplomatic incident’ if he revealed the details.
Romano also suggested that Salernitana were ‘completely furious’ with Wolves for a derisory and ‘horrible’ offer for Dia, leaving him stuck in Italy.
Dia getting back to his best with Salernitana
The 26-year-old hit 16 league goals last season and is now starting to find his best form again.
Dia scored twice in a 2-2 draw with Cagliari on Sunday, just his third start since that Wolves transfer saga.
The Italian media seem to be impressed with Tuttomercatoweb stating ‘last year’s sniper is back’.
TMW praised Dia’s predatory instincts as he slotted home Salernitana’s first before then scoring a penalty deep into injury time.
The hope is that Dia can now kick on with TMW seemingly confident that he is coming back to his best.
We can’t see Wolves making another offer in January though, no doubt fearing the wrath of De Sanctis after a rather public verbal attack.