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With the summer transfer window closing on Thursday, the Revolution have started to make some serious noise in the last few days regarding players both coming and going. We've heard that Kalifa Cisse and Saer Sene have interest from English and French clubs respectively, but the hot news of the week all seems to revolve around Juan Agudelo.
As we've reported earlier in the window, various internet sources have linked Agudelo with a move to Stoke City, the Barclay's Premier League club that already boasts the most American players on their roster (Geoff Cameron, Maurice Edu, and Brek Shea). Rumor has it that Agudelo has met with Stoke representatives as recently as last week and the resident MLS rumor hub, MLS Transfers, is reporting this afternoon that MLS has agreed to a fee for the player. However, it appears now that the 20-year-old striker may want to wait until the January window for a move away from Foxborough.
MLS Tranfers' blog post from yesterday inferred that Agudelo's sale to Stoke would potentially make way for New England to sign EPL veteran Louis Saha. Saha, who played most recently with Serie A side Lazio (as of a month ago), is a free agent and has been linked to MLS in the past. The 34-year-old striker seemed like he was set for a move to the Revolution, as corroborated by Total MLS on twitter, but this morning MLS Transfers has said that the Saha rumors are dead and that the Revs are instead looking to bring back former U.S. international striker Charlie Davies instead.
Soccer's funny. Source says #NERevs talks with Saha are dead. Turning attention to former #USMNT Charlie Davies, as aluded by @SoccerByIves
— MLS Transfers (@MLSTransfers) August 5, 2013
Davies has made 23 appearances for the Danish club Randers FC since his move there from Sochaux in 2012, but has not seen much playing time in those appearances and has failed to score any goals. Prior to his time in Denmark, Davies had a spell in MLS with D.C. United (on loan from Sochaux) back in 2011 where he netted 11 goals during a somewhat controversial season. He was rumored to New England as early as last week when Soccer By Ives suggested the possibility in a tweet.
By most accounts, it would see that Davies would be subject to Major League Soccer's enigmatic "allocation" system if he were to be placed somewhere in the league, so suggesting that he could definitely be with the Revs by Thursday is a foregone conclusion. However, MLS has shown flashes of ambiguity regarding these dealings in the past, and a direct move to New England isn't exactly out of the realm of possibility.
All of this seems to hinge on selling Agudelo, however. If Juan chooses to stay for the remainder of the season, then the Revolution would be unlikely to have the cash needed to bring in Davies or Saha. If Saha is indeed off the table, then Davies might be a reasonable signing and may not break the bank either, based on his current situation. That said, Davies' spot on the team would be all but assured. If he were to be signed, I would expect him to battle it out with Chad Barrett and the recently-emerging Dimitry Imbongo for playing time/starts.
This past weekend, Revolution General Manager was asked about the possibility of New England making a signing before the close of the transfer window, to which he replied, "We are looking to add before Thursday, but there's nothing to announce yet. There's a good chance that something may happen, but it's not done." With that, we should expect at least some kind of activity between now and Thursday. Let's just hope that the Revs come out of the window in a better spot than a worse one.