An unnamed Premier League club is reportedly expected to join the chase for Panathinaikos striker Fotis Ioannidis.

As reported on Wednesday, the Blues have offered a deal ultimately worth €25 million (£21.1 million) to the Athens club for the Greece international, their second rebuffed bid for the 24-year-old. The latest offer reportedly includes a 15 per cent sell-on clause.

Earlier in the week, Italian reports claimed Ioannidis’s agent had agreed personal terms with Bologna for the player but with no fee set with Panathinaikos.

According to Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano, the Serie A club have offered €18 million (€15.2 million) plus €2 million (£1.2 million) in add-ons, while he says it’s anticipated that another Premier League will join the hunt for the highly rated frontman. Another Serie A side, Lazio, could also be keen, according to a Greek report.

French side Lille were reported to have made a €21 million (£17.7 million) offer earlier in the week, while Portuguese club Sporting CP had previously looked the favourites to land Ioannidis, however, they are now understood to be looking elsewhere with the fee Town offered higher than they could match.

Greek sources have indicated to TWTD that Panathinaikos will hope to get the bidding up towards the €30 million mark, a figure which would almost certainly be more than Town are willing to spend on one player this summer.

Ioannidis was a youth player with Olympiacos Chalkida and Levadiakos before breaking into senior football with the latter late in 2018 and in August 2020, he joined Panathinaikos on a four-year deal.

Goals were hard to come by in his first three seasons with the Athens-based side, netting four, four and seven in the league in those campaigns.

Nevertheless, his form was good enough to see him win the first of his 11 full caps, in which he has scored two goals, in 2022, having already played at U18, U19 and U21 levels.

Last season, Ioannidis, whose father Vasilios also played professionally in Greece, netted 23 times and picked up nine assists in all competitions, 15 in the league, seven in Europe, as Panathinaikos narrowly missed out on the group stage of the Champions League before entering the Europa League.

Elsewhere, former UEFA general secretary and chief executive Gerhard Aigner died yesterday, aged 80.

Although German-born Aigner’s first club was Nurnberg, he was also a fan of Town, his late first wife having been a Blues supporter and he spoke on a number of occasions of his admiration for Sir Bobby Robson’s side of the late seventies and early eighties.

Photo: Sipa USA

Saxonblue74 added 13:16 - Jun 21 Agents hey? Bloody parasites!
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Saxonblue74 added 13:16 - Jun 21 Agents hey? Bloody parasites!
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fifeblue added 13:37 - Jun 21 I didn't know there were any unnamed clubs in the Premier League. What do their supporters shout?
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NabilAbidallah added 14:16 - Jun 21 fifeblue no idea but suspect their favourite player could be triallist
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jon_talbot56 added 15:36 - Jun 21 Cheer up Blues fans. We may or may not sign him but the scale of the fee signals we are not going to do what Luton and Sheff Utd did and spend peanuts. Nor are planning to replace virtually the entire team a la Burnley. Nor are we doing what Forest did and sign anyone with a pulse. Moreover going for a top striker indicates a positive approach- we are not looking to play England style unthreatening low block.

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Radlett_blue added 15:53 - Jun 21 Well, we're now fishing in a much more crowded pond. With the type of player we are now pursuing, it seems we are serious about next season & I think our season is highly dependent on the success of our new recruits.
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oldelsworthyfan added 16:00 - Jun 21 A load of speculative froth from agents!
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ITFCSG added 18:00 - Jun 21 Even if we end up not signing Ioannidis, its crazy to think how the game has changed since we were last in the Prem. Our current record signing was £4.75 million for Sereni in 2001, we will surely smash that record many times over this summer.
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Karlosfandangal added 19:02 - Jun 21 I wonder if he has a say on where he would like to play next season. Hope he has the mentality that all the other Town players have
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RegencyBlue added 21:40 - Jun 21 On the face of it we really want this guy having supposedly made three bids. Having said that we can’t afford to get involved in a protracted transfer saga. We need new players asap so they can settle in and get used to how we play etc. Make a final offer and move on if not accepted.
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Fat_Boy_Tim added 01:30 - Jun 22 First of all @saxonblue, IF a bid has been made (that’s not certain) then it’s got nothing to do with agents. Only clubs can decide to accept a payment (or not) for a player’s registration. Secondly, I think people are mis-understanding our buying power. We can lose (in terms of income and costs that qualify sustainability and profitability calculations) about £70m over the last three years (including next year). We’ve already lost about 2(m leaving us £45m to play with. However each deal is spread over the length of the contract as far as S&P rules go. So if we sign Omari for 50m on a 5 year deal it only takes £10m out of this year’s budget, Leaving £35m going forward. This is the same for all Prem clubs but because they have massive overheads we are still in a good position because of our headroom in s&p that they have spent in previous seasons.

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PhuketPete added 05:52 - Jun 22 You’re right FatBoyTim. Also noting that whilst it seems bizarre that we’re rumoured to be looking at another left-sided defender for £20m+, that would make sense as the new cost could be spread out to £4-5m pa whereas IF we sold Leif (which I hope we don’t) for £25m we could immediately book £24m profit to add to our war chest. We’re really fortunate to have Mark A running the corporate side as he’ll know exactly how best to manipulate all this

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parhamblue added 13:22 - Jun 22 IF another PL club comes in with a bid, wouldn't it be funny if it's one Kieran has already rejected the opportunity to manage. Either way, it's only going to be one that we could well finish above, perhaps with a less appealing coach from the player's point of view. This player should be able to see exactly how he will fit in with the McKenna playing style.
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Andjamwar added 14:52 - Jun 22 If we're putting in offers like this, it suggests we've got a fairly healthy transfer budget for the season. Would be interesting to see how much we have for spending this window
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Tractor_Boy_in_HK added 05:27 - Jun 23 Not only will we crush the individual transfer record, we will likely spend more on transfers this summer than we have previously ever spent in the history of the club. More this summer than in our entire history - oh how the game has changed.
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FreddySteady added 09:51 - Jun 23 Silly season has started. We’ve allegedly offered Alexis Sanchez a one year deal. Nonsense.
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