LEONARDO ULLOA has proved he can handle the Premier League with Leicester City, and Gus Poyet considered signing his fellow South American for a second time during the summer.

Poyet decided against paying the £8m asking price which the Foxes agreed with Brighton, where the striker had been playing since Poyet had taken him in January last year.

After 23 goals in 50 appearances in the Championship with the Seagulls, Leicester were convinced to gamble on the Argentine at the top level.

And, while he is without a goal in his last six matches, Ulloa repaid Leicester boss Nigel Pearson by scoring five in his first five Premier League games to make everyone take notice of him. Poyet was not surprised.

The Sunderland boss said: “I went to Spain to watch him live for Almeria and I was happy to try to persuade the chairman of Brighton to bring him over. It was quite an expensive transfer for us. He had an impact straight away, his all round game is very good.

“He holds the ball up, can play down the right and the left. His movement in the box is outstanding, his play in the area is outstanding, especially his finishing. He has all the qualities of a traditional English number nine.

“For some reason he was playing in teams that didn’t allow him to reach that level, but we thought we might be able to do it together at Brighton. I was very pleased he went there. I was tempted to sign him from Brighton in the summer, but we already had four main strikers so it wasn’t an option.”

Poyet spent the summer trying to persuade Fabio Borini to return to the Stadium of Light and was unable to bring in the extra forward he would have preferred, with the exception of winger Ricky Alvarez.

But, he says, had he been looking for a striker in the mould of Steven Fletcher or Connor Wickham then the likelihood is he would have had to turn to the foreign market because of the size of the fees in England.

“Leonardo is a very English striker. That is what we were looking for at Brighton, call it a target man, and he had those qualities,” said Poyet. “I remember him at San Lorenzo in Argentina when he was very young and I follow Spanish football closely. I knew he had something.

“We went to Spain to match Numancia versus Almeria and it was 0-0, but after five minutes I knew I wanted him. He made a couple of moves in the box and he’s got something. He scored in his first game for Brighton and boom.

“I tell you something, if we found someone similar, with similar qualities here in England, it would cost £25m, £30m, £35m. It’s wrong.”