Sporting open to £70m Gyokeres deal

The next move of Sporting Lisbon striker Viktor Gyokeres is a big talking point in football.

His hat-trick against Manchester City in the Champions League on Tuesday cemented the 26-year-old’s reputation as one of the most sought-after forwards in Europe and took his overall tally for the season to 23 in 17 games.

Gyokeres, who has nine goals in his past three matches alone, has also scored 10 for the Sweden national team.

According to BBC Sport's chief football news reporter Simon Stone, Sporting could allow Gyokeres to leave the club for less than his €100m (£83.16m) release clause this summer.

He says the reigning Primeira Liga champions have told the forward's camp they would be willing to accept between €75m-€85m (£62.37m-£70.68m) for the player.

Gyokeres' contract runs to 2028 and contains his release clause with Championship side Coventry City set to receive 10% of any profit Sporting receive above the price they paid for Gyokeres.

However, the drop in price will likely alert England’s top clubs, including Manchester United given current Sporting boss Ruben Amorim will join them as their new head coach next week.

Amorim has promised not to return to his former club for transfer targets in January. Speaking about Gyokeres, Amorim said the issue was so sensitive he would "not even make a joke about it".

Incidentally, it was Dan Ashworth - the current sporting director of United - that sold Gyokeres to Coventry for just £1m in 2021 from former club Brighton.