Following Dinamo's pursuit of a centre forward, Hajduk Split now also find themselves very short of goalscoring options with coach Stanko Poklepovic failing to trust Duje Cop or Ahmad Sharbini to face Dinamo Bucarest. Hajduk met the Romania side in the Europa Liga qualifying and were beaten comfortably 3-1.
Unlike Dinamo, Hajduk do not have any finance to work with especially having paid off the expensive contracts of the likes of Ante Seric, Dario Jertec and Ivan Rodic. Hajduk currently have enough widemen in Marin Tomasov, Mario Ticinovic, Senijad Ibricic, Anas Sharbini and Mirko Oremus, but has no striker who enjoys the trust of the coach. Deals for Ahmad and Anas Sharbini have not worked out. Anas is only just showing some form again in the Croatian league. Ahmad meanwhile spurned a deal with Racing Genk to come to the Poljud and seemed happier at HNK Rijeka who may regret parting with him in a two for the price of one deal.
Duje Cop and Ante Vukusic are the most favoured in Hajduk's strikeforce. However both are mere youngsters with little experience or goal history behind them. Cop particularly may benefit from a spell on loan. It is difficult to pin point who Hajduk can go for, but will definitely have to recruit cheaply unless they bow out of Europe and go with what they got in the Croatian league. They undoubtedly will look in the free agent market and as they have virtually no foriegn players may allow themselves a foriegn striker should it prove worthwhile.
Croats within their price range are Zdravko Popovic, who is contracted to Greek Superliga side Atromotis and Hapoel Tel Aviv's Bojan Vrucina who has impressed in HNL1 and in this level in Europe. Vrucina is currently out of favour in Israel after only 10 games. Hajduk would like a higher profile signing but Igor Budan would costs around 2m Euro's even to loan and Mario Budimir is similarly expensive and attracting AEK Athens after impressing in Ergotelis.
