Florin Andone and the £14.8m Brighton transfer that never happened

Most Brighton fans would agree that the signing of Florin Andone has not worked out as well as might have been hoped.

Since arriving in the summer of 2018, Andone has scored six Albion goals. He has missed the same number of games suspended for swinging an elbow into the head of West Brom midfielder Sam Field and attempting to break the leg of Southampton’s Yan Valery.

Graham Potter decided within three months of his appointment as Brighton boss that Andone was too much of a loose cannon to keep around.

Maybe it was that red card for the horror tackle on Valery in Potter’s third game in charge? Or maybe it was Andone doing something to wind up Bernardo to the point the Brazilian kicked him in an incident caught on camera as the players arrived prior to that match against the Saints?

Three years on and the 2-0 defeat to Southampton remains Andone’s most recent Albion appearance. The Romanian striker was subsequently sent to Galatasaray on loan in its aftermath, at which point a stream of interesting stories emerged.

One told of Andone clattering through Glenn Murray in a light training session, an incident which could have resulted in disastrous consequences had Murray been injured and the Albion denied the services of a player who scored 36 percent of their Premier League goals.

Brighton fan and one of the most respected football journalists in the UK Paul Hayward tweeted that Andone’s farewell party could have been held in a phone box and there would still have been room to move, he was that unpopular.

Once in Turkey, Andone did his best to burn any remaining bridges he did have with Brighton in an astonishing interview with The Athletic.

He blamed everyone and anyone for him failing to make the grade in the Premier League. Chris Hughton and Potter were at fault for not playing him more.

Murray was a problem, Andone’s logic dictating that a striker scoring goals and keeping him out of the team was a bad thing.

Arguably the most incredible aspect of the entire interview was that Andone did not think his horror tackle on Valery was worthy of a red card.

Add referee Kevin Friend to the list of people who were to blame, even if Potter said in his post-game interview that he could find no way to defend Andone.

Andone clearly has a very high opinion of himself. His loan spells with Galatasaray in 2019-20 and Cadiz in 2021-22 do not back that up.

He has scored only three times for his two temporary employers, who only saw fit to give him a combined 18 appearances in two seasons. Cadiz even tried to send him back to the Amex by ending his year-long loan with them six months early in January.

Needless to say, neither club wanted to take the striker off Brighton on a permanent basis. The Albion would appear to have a job on their hands if they want to get rid this summer, not helped by his rumoured £40,000 a week wages.

And so Andone remains an Albion player with another year still to run on the five year contract he signed upon arriving from Deportivo La Corina.

Positives to come from signing Andone have been few and far between. Important goals against Huddersfield Town home and away and that famous effort against Crystal Palace in the 2018-19 season are the sum total of his contribution on the pitch.

Off it, Brighton can at least console themselves that they only paid £5.2 million for Andone, thanks to a relegation release clause activated when Deportivo dropped out of La Liga at the end of the 2017-18 campaign.

Scarily – and this often gets forgotten – Brighton came close to paying much more. A year earlier and the Albion had a series of bids for Andone turned down in the final few days of the summer transfer window, the biggest of which was for an eye watering £14.8 million.

Brighton felt they needed a new striker having failed to score in their opening three Premier League fixtures following promotion, losing 2-0 to both Manchester City and Leicester City and then drawing 0-0 at Watford.

Andone became the club’s target after scoring 12 times from 44 appearances for Depor in 2016-17. Every player in Spain has a release clause in their contract as standard. Andone’s was set at £25 million.

Local media in Spain meanwhile reported that Depor were willing to do a deal for around £17 million once forward Lucas Perez returned to the club on loan from Arsenal to bolster their firepower.

How close Brighton came to signing Andone for such a ridiculous fee, we will never know. The Albion were so desperate by the end of the summer transfer window that they applied for and were granted a special extension to complete a deal beyond the 11pm deadline.

In a quite wonderful cock up, Vincent Janssen then rejected a move to the Amex from Spurs, rendering that extension completely pointless.

Had Janssen turned Brighton down with a day of the window still to go rather that after it had shut, maybe the Albion would have gone back in for Andone.

Maybe they would have paid the £17 million Depor wanted in the misguided belief that he was the man, overlooking the fact that his questionable attitude and fiery temperament were well-known.

If Brighton had their £14.8 million bid for Andone accepted in the summer of 2017 and then followed it up by signing Jurgen Locadia for £14 million and Alireza Jahanbakhsh for £17 million, they would have spent £45 million on three forwards all of whom would ended up being released on free transfers.

Undoubtedly, Brighton did the right thing by not going beyond £14.8 million for Andone. The failure to sign a striker in that summer 2017 transfer window provoked a stinging response from the majority of Albion fans, including this website which mocked up a gravestone with the inscription “Albion’s Premier League future” chiselled on it.

There is a lesson there in trusting the club to do the right deals and not just sign any old Tom, Dick or Harry out of desperation – something that might be worth remembering as frustration begins to build at a lack of signings ahead of the 2022-23 season.

A shade over £5 million for Andone was in the end an acceptable fee. Imagine if Brighton had paid the best part of £15 million to sign him? It would have gone down as one of the worst transfers in Albion history.

And arguably the most interesting aspect of Brighton’s interest in Andone is which other clubs didn’t sign him. Burnley had an £11.8 million bid turned down two weeks before the Albion tried to make their move.

The Clarets then turned their attention to Chris Wood, who they signed for £15 million from The Leeds United instead. Proof that good strikers are out there who can be bought for a decent price.

If only Brighton had made Wood their primary transfer target in that summer window, rather than inflicting Andone on us.