As we are well aware, Richard Kone has been rumoured to leave us. As this (potential) transfer could be the biggest that Wycombe will have ever received for a player, I thought it deserved it’s own space on the Forum. (Can you imagine the fee that Athletic Newham will received from their sell-on clause?!?!)
As of 3pm Friday 1st Aug, we have the following rumours: (Take some with a pinch of salt)
Kone hasn’t travelled with the squad to Bradford
Preston North End, Swansea & a club from France have had bids rejected
Leicester, Wrexham, Middlesborough and maybe Ipswich have a reported “interest” in the player but nothing has stated that a bid has been submitted.
Norwich have made it known that they will not be bidding for Kone.
I think the biggest consideration for him to make sure he continues to get minutes on the pitch. If he gets 10+ goals for a lower championship team the world will be his. If he rots in the reserves somewhere getting the odd 10mins here and there for the first team his career could easily go south.
£5m plus, say, 10% of sell-on fees wouldn’t be a bad deal at all given he didn’t score in the second half of the season. But do we have anyone lined up to replace Kone or would we rely on Fink, Udoh and the development squad?
Yup , stay with us. If it looks like we are going up, or go in January after showing his worth again, move on and up. A peasant can dream and be loyal to his king.
Wow surprised at that. Think we need to understand that Kone for £5m or higher is unbelievable. 5 x Mehmeti sales. I’d definitely sell him this window. No way we wait until January when potentially he can go on Bosman abroad? Is that still a thing?
You would hope some seniors players give him some advice rather than his agent who is just after his commission . Sign another year get some more experience and see what options you have next summer . Equally he could be poor and he lost his chance of a big pay day.
I’d be really shocked if Kone stays till January. If he isn’t willing to sign a new contract this Summer, that would be a huge risk for the club to take. A £5m fee for a striker who has played one full pro season with one year left on his deal is objectively a great bit of business, even to our rich owners.
The article suggests Swansea bid £4.5m which we turned down and multiple clubs are still interested. I suspect we are holding out for even more than £5m, and will get it before the end of August.
If he’s in the team tomorrow, we should enjoy it while we can.
I think this is a different situation to previous players with active agents who have left us (see Anthony Stewart x2). The fees being touted for Kone are huge and at some point, simply won’t be ignored by the club. Likewise, I imagine he’s being offered 2/3x the wages in his current contract by other clubs.
I suspect the choice is sign a new deal with us with a hefty release clause (eg. £10m) or leave this Summer for a large enough fee.
Holding onto Kone till January, if he isn’t ready to sign a contract, would be a bad move for the club who won’t make anywhere near as much as they’d make this Summer. It’ll be sad to see him go, but this is the model we have now, regardless of our owners’ riches (see Brentford selling Hogan, Toney, Watkins, Benrahma, Mbeumo throughout their rise through the leagues).
The impact agents have on players moving can’t be ignored. It was Roger Johnson, IIRC, who told me at and end of year do that he’d been under a lot of pressure to move so the agent got his commission. The story could have been he didn’t have an agent so as not to be under pressure, but the point remains the same.
Anyway I hope we see Kone play a few more times, banging in several goals just to keep pushing up the price, before he gets a move. Also giving Fink time to get to full fitness.
If we keep hold of Kone until January, the fee will be nowhere near what we’ll get for him now as most of the clubs will play chicken with us or wait to sign him for free. If a foreign club is interested, they can offer a contract at the 6 month point, English clubs need to wait until 45 days or 1 month (I think) before offering a deal (Altho we all know that they will put contracts to the player via their agent). We’ll only get a big fee (like the ones rumoured from Luton last Jan) if they are struggling in their league and want players to keep them up or to try and get ahead of everyone else (if they have the funds to do so)
At the end of the day, the reason we have transfer fee’s is to buy someone out of their contract. If they only have 6 months, less compensation is needed.
The best thing for us would be for a Prem or high level Championship side to buy him but loan him back to us for the year to continue his development.
I really hope that we have an eye on someone to come in and fill the hole Kone leaves. We can’t go into a season with 2 recognised strikers (Some might class Udoh as an attacking wide player). Need to have some more depth there
I hope to keep King Kone and watch him score his way to another massive bid in January.
Can’t help but think at this stage he will be either a development player for a ‘bigger side’ or a big risk if they are expecting him to hit the ground running.
Is this DR doing great business or getting bushwhacked at the worst point of the window. Hopefully, no sudden terse ‘Richard has decided to leave…’ message for us to argue over for a year!