'Desperate' Aleksandar Mitrović reveals how he engineered Fulham move | OneFootball

Star striker. Goalscoring international. And it seems you can now add agent to Aleksandar Mitrović’s list of talents.

Speaking to FourFourTwo, he has opened up on how he managed to manufacture his deadline day departure from Newcastle in January 2018 due to his frustration with Rafael Benítez.

So desperate was he to leave Tyneside that he almost joined local rivals Middlesbrough before pulling off a move to Fulham, where he has been a huge hit ever since.

“Deadline day was the most stressful one of my life!” Mitrović recalled.

“I had travelled from Newcastle to Belgium to rejoin Anderlecht but that broke down because they didn’t sell one of their players to Udinese so couldn’t afford me.

“Newcastle called and said Middlesbrough would sign me and at that point I said I’d go anywhere so my agent started negotiating with them.

“Then I was looking at WhatsApp and saw Slavisa Jokanović’s name because he’d called me a few days before and asked about my situation but I told him I was joining Anderlecht.

“I got bored with waiting on deadline day so I sent him a message and he replied asking if it was true that my deal had broken down as he still needed a striker.

“I replied ‘yes please, phone my agent, I want to join Fulham’. We did the deal in Belgium and it went down to the final minutes but I was so relieved to get it done.”

Given that it seems he wasn’t sold solely for footballing reasons, the 25-year-old has unsurprisingly been a big hit at Fulham, netting 46 goals in all competitions during his time at Craven Cottage.