Newcastle United are still tracking German striker Pierre-Michel Lasogga, who’s struggled for first-team football at Hamburg following the arrival of Croatian striker Ivica Olic.
As speculation grew surrounding the future of the German international, rumours from Hamburg surfaced that the Bundesliga club were “willing to listen to offers” for the fringe player.
Pierre-Michel Lasogga is a physical striker who uses his height to his and his team advantage. Despite scoring two this season, they have been with his feet. However, last year he scored thirteen goals, four of them were headers.
With his height, he can flick a ball on. As Carroll did at Newcastle before he left for Liverpool in 2011. This can prove vital on the counter attack with Ayoze Perez or Papiss Cisse up front.
His rocket of a right foot gives him the capability of shooting from long range, which is what he tends to do in games.
Having started his youth career at 1.FC Gladbeck before moving onto Schalke, neighbours Rot-Weiss Essen then Wolfsburg, finally Lasogga eventually settled for his youth career in the 2009-10 season at Bayer Leverkusen.
That same year, he moved between the second teams of Bayer Leverkusen, where he played five times but failed to register a goal. He then moved to the capital, Hertha BSC II he played six times, scoring three. He signed permanently for Die Blau-Weißen (The Blue-Whites) on a three-year contract, only completing one season with Leverkusen.
He played for Hertha’s first team sixty-three times and scored twenty-two times. Last season, he signed for Hamburger SV on loan but injuries hampered his season and he was sidelined for extended periods of time throughout the season. Nevertheless, he came back features twenty times and scored thirteen in those matches.
He signed for £7.9million from Hertha, putting pen to paper on a five-year deal at Hamburg in July 2014.
Mirko Slomka who brought him to the club was sacked in early-mid September; Josef Zinnbauer replaced him. Zinnbauer liked to play a 4-2-3-1 formation; evidently a player like Lasogga would not fit into the lone striker position. As a result, the more utility striker of Artjoms Rudnevs was the new bosses choice. Initially, Rudnevs and Lasogga played up front but since Rudnevs is aging and Lasogga isn’t capable of sprinting after defence splitting passes, it didn’t quite work out for them. What makes it worse for Lasogga is that recently, Ivica Olic has been brought in from Wolfsburg as another option up front for them, which makes his chances of playing more, a lot thinner.
In my opinion, if used in the right way with a pacey striker next to him, I think Lasogga would be perfect for Newcastle. If they were to buy the forward, he would cost in the region of £7million to £10million according to TransferMarkt.
