Tigers Transfer Talk: Will Jakupovic and Robertson join Maguire in leaving Hull City?

Your weekly round-up of the players jumping off the good ship Hull City at an alarming rate! And the one or two its vaguely suggested  might arrive.

Sunday 11^th June

According to The Sun, Michael Dawson is a target for Burnley. The apparent cheap release clauses in the contracts of our players following relegation are attracting interest after Curtis Davies went to Derby County for just £500k.

Along similar lines, Tom Huddlestone, who is said to have a release clause of £2m, was linked with Watford today but I can’t find any source for this rumour. It was either in a printed version of one of the Sundays or came from a crap “news” site and was given credence by appearing in the gossip columns on more reputable sites.

Monday 12^th June

City’s prize youngster, 18-year-old Josh Tymon, is almost certainly leaving this summer having rejected a professional contract with The Tigers despite Ehab Allam’s brilliant efforts to keep him. The Sentinel say Stoke City are preparing a contract offer while ESPN claim Liverpool, Watford and Aston Villa are also interested. Josh should be worth £10m+ in the current market with add-ons or sell-on clauses. City will be lucky to get a fifth of that at tribunal.

The Sun suggest Burnley's Scott Arfield is being chased by West Brom, Hull and Fulham. Arfield is a wide midfielder who joined Burnley on a free from Huddersfield in 2013 and has been an important player in their two recent promotions to the Premier League and in establishing themselves in the top flight. The rag claims the fee would be £2.5m for the Canadian international who is a former Scotland U21 cap.

HITC – who are my least favourite news source, worse than Clubcall! – link Rangers’ Josh Windass with a move to City. It’s not a story that needs much putting together. It was reported last week that Josh will be allowed to leave Ibrox. City are an obvious match given his father’s standing in the City and current employment. I have asked Dean Windass for a comment on this one. He wouldn’t say anything. That’s unusual!

Tuesday 13^th June

Sky Sports reported today that City have “received bids”for Harry Maguire and Andy Robertson. That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. We know both are going and the last thing we’d want is for them to go later in the transfer window when the job of replacing them (and the other half a squad we’ve lost) would become increasingly difficult.

The Sun say the bid for Maguire is from Leicester City and is around £17m. While this number varies in other stories, almost every outlet suggest this bid is genuine. The Mirror claim Burnley are back in for Robertson having failed to get him in January.

Radio Humberside tweeted that City are set to lose yet another player with young defender Harvey Rodgers preferring a move to Fleetwood over signing a new contract.

New Hull City manager Leonid Slutsky is a friend of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich speculation linking City with Chelsea loanees will be rife over the coming weeks. In the first genuine link, Evening Standard say Tomas Kalas is a loan target for City and Fulham. This story was confirmed by the Hull Daily Mail who spoke to the player’s agent. Czech international Kalas has had five loan spells away from Chelsea since they paid over £5m for him as a 17-year-old in 2010. He was at Fulham for the last campaign having been promoted with Middlesbrough the season prior.

In a far less believable story Tribal Football claim Arsenal want to buy 21-year-old Russian international Aleksandr Golovin from CSKA Moscow and loan him to City. Arsenal have been linked with the player for a while but a loan back to CSKA is far more likely than to The Tigers.

Thursday 15^th June

Harry Maguire’s move to Leicester was officially announced today. The fee is officially undisclosed but is generally considered to be worth £16-17m eventually. How much of that is before add-ons depends on who you believe but is somewhere between £12-15m. Sheffield United will receive around £1.4m due to a sell-on clause in the deal that brought Harry to Hull.

The Maguire fee shows the current strength of the transfer market. He only has a year left on his contract and in the past that risk of losing him for nothing would have lead to a token price. However the competition for his signature, huge TV money burning a hole in pockets and the requirement for immediate success has strengthened the position of the seller.

Ex-boss Marco Silva isn’t just being linked with current City players. The Mirror say he wants to be re-united with last season’s loan signing Lazar Markovic from Liverpool while Clubcall (Yes, I know) claim a bid for another of our former loanees Omar Elabdellaoui has failed as the Norwegian right-back wants to stay at Olympiakos.

Friday 16^th June

As promised the previous evening, we woke to an exclusive story from Radio Humberside that Goalie Eldin Jakupovic is close to a £2m move to Leicester City. The club took the highly unusual step of denying any bid has been received in a statement on the website. However, the BBC still ran the story on their site and claim discussions have taken place and Leicester are definitely interested.

Exclusive: We understand Hull City keeper Eldin Jakupovic is in advanced talks with Leicester City and a move is close. #hcafc #lcfc

— BBC Humberside Sport (@HumbersideSport) June 16, 2017

Harvey Rodgers officially joined Fleetwood Town on a free transfer bagging a three-year deal. The 20-year-old centre half from Selby has been in the City youth ranks for almost a decade and impressed during a loan spell at Accrington last season. Losing him is a very careless act but not a surprising one from a club that shows no aptitude for protecting its assets at the moment. This isn’t a mistake on the level of Josh Tymon but is like the releasing of another North Yorkshire lad, Rory Watson, last season. Both are players who will go on to have very good careers. That would hopefully be with City but if not – they’d sell for a good amount of money.

I’ve already mentioned how useless I think HITC are and they run two stories on Friday that hopefully prove it. The first links City, along with QPR and Ipswich, with a move for Matty Fryatt. The striker has just been released by Nottingham Forest having not played for two years. He was an absolute hero at City and one of my favourite strikers to have worn black and amber but represents a massive risk.

The other HITC story suggests Southampton want our England U18 goalkeeper Will Mannion. While Will is well under contract and would command a fee, I can’t comprehend losing another of the brilliant young lads I watch so proudly whenever possible in the U23s.

Tigers Transfer Talk: New Hull City boss Leonid Slutsky takes on a HUGE challenge

This week's round-up of Hull City's news and rumours includes the appointment of a new manager and the loss of a key defender.

Leonid Slutsky

Sunday 4^th June

According to The Sun, WBA manager is weighing up a move for City midfielder Sam Clucas. He’s a player I’d be devastated to lose being perhaps the player of the year last season, contracted for another two years and the heartbeat of a re-built side. That said, I couldn’t argue that he deserves to be playing in the Premier League.

Monday 5^th June

Angel

Former CSKA Moscow and Russia manager Leonid Slutsky is the choice to take over as manager of The Tigers and a deal is imminent say TheTelegraph and most other newspapers. Slutsky rescued Russia’s failing qualification campaign for Euro 2016 but resigned after a poor tournament. He’d been doing the job in conjunction with his job at CSKA where he managed for seven years, winning three league titles.

The same article talks about the problems facing Slutsky if/when he is appointed mentioning that WBA and Stoke are both interested in Sam Clucas and also Harry Maguire.

West London Sport link QPR with Real Zaragoza’s Spanish striker Angel. The 30 year-old is out of contract and available for free. His scoring record is unimpressive over his career but close to one in two games for Zaragoza in the last seasons. According to the local paper, Hull City, Reading and Aston Villa are also watching the player.

Tuesday 6^th June

The usually terrible HITC claim four Premier League teams want goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic. Leicester, Crystal Palace, Watford and Swansea are said to be preparing moves for another player City would be very careless to lose.

Twitter account "Hull_City_News" spotted an exclusive story as Curtis Davies’ brother tweeted that he was about to “become a Ram” or move to Derby County. The tweet was later deleted but the news was out there.

Wednesday 7^th June

Curtis Davies joined Derby County for an officially undisclosed fee said to be around £500,000 and the result of a release clause in his contract after relegation. Davies is 32 years-old but an experienced and capable Championship defender. If City had options in that area, it wouldn’t be so bad but with a major rebuild required (see below) it’s a departure we could have done without.

On the heels of Davies joining Derby, The Irish Sun claim Tom Huddlestone also has a release clause in his contract set at just £2m and WBA (them again) are interested in taking him. 

The level of rebuild required at Hull City

Get West London include The Tigers in another QPR story suggesting the Rs are set to beat City, Brentford and Watford in the “race” (it’s always a race) for Millwall’s Fred Onyedinma. The Nigerian born winger is out of contract but as he is only 20 years-old, would command a fee.

Friday 9^th June

Hull City finally appointed Leonid Slutsky as manager a week after it became clear he was the choice of the Allams to replace Marco Silva. Slutsky becomes the first Russian to manage in English football earning £15,000 a week which will more than double if City are promoted back to the Premier League. He’s got a hell of a job to do but it is a welcome high-profile appointment and has been made in plenty of time to allow him to settle in ahead of pre-season.

A story on the Daily Mail website links City and Middlesbrough with Scotland defender Charlie Mulgrew. The former Celtic centre-half was relegated with Blackburn last season. He takes a hell of a free-kick but is otherwise an average defender.

Three players City have previously had an interest in are on the market according to the news today. Rangers’ Josh Windass is set to leave the club after just one season in Scotland. He joined them on a free transfer from Accrington but will command a good fee despite not really impressing.

Brighton are willing to let midfielder Oliver Norwood leave. He was linked with City after an impressive Euro 2016 with Northern Ireland but instead joined Brighton from Reading and spent last season warming the bench as the Seagulls were promoted to the Premier League.

And last but never least, Fraizer Campbell is available on a free transfer after been released by Crystal Palace. City have been linked with him 3,256,798 times since his loan spell in 2007/08. We’d all have him back … right?

Tigers Transfer Talk: Three Premier League clubs want Hull City's Kamil Grosicki

A weekly round-up of the transfer rumours in and out of Hull City and the names linked with the vacant manager's position.

Saturday 27^th May

To the surprise of no-one – Marco Silva was unveiled as the new temporary manager of Watford. That’s not his role officially but any manager at that club is going to be temporary. Joking aside, it’s a brave move for Silva. Even successful managers have fallen victim to the Pozzos and their itchy trigger finger.

Sunday 28^th May

The Mirror reckon Everton will challenge Spurs for the signature of Harry Maguire for a fee of £22m. That would be an eye-watering figure for a player who only has a year on his contract and is approaching ten times what we paid for Maguire in the first place. Harry has a ton of promise and is a good age but that would be a huge amount of money for a player who has only been a first team regular in the Premier League for six months.

The same article has Burnley down as potential suitors for former loanee striker Oumar Niasse of Everton.

In the Polish media rumours surface linking Kamil Grosicki with Watford. Don’t worry, the English press will catch up with that one and run it and run it this week.

Monday 29^th May

It’s a day of tenuous links. The club hope to appoint a manager in the next fortnight. The first link from French site jeunesfooteux.com links former Yugoslavia and Bosnia international Blaz Sliskovic, now manager of Croats Zrinjski Mostar, with the job. I think the return of Terry Dolan is more likely.

Paul Lambert left Wolves after less than a season and was immediately suggested as a City target by Bleacher Report’s Dean Jones. I don’t know if this was a rumour, a guess or a prediction. Either way, all of the “newz” sites picked up on it.

Kamil Grosicki is on the radar of Newcastle United according to Sportowefakty. Either they have better contacts than most and would know or they have more interest in making stuff up than the papers over here. Who knows?

Another of our recently departed loanees Andrea Ranocchia has been offered to Newcastle say their local, the Chronicle.

Tuesday 30^th May

The national Daily Mail suggest that Preston manager Simon Grayson has impressed the Allams with his achievements in Lancashire on a shoe-string budget. Grayson does have decent pedigree having won promotion from League One three times with Preston, Huddersfield and Leeds but does appear to have hit a ceiling in the middle of the Championship. He has certainly got an eye for talent and has spotted and developed players like Tom Barkhuizen and Jordan Hugill this season.

The Mirror claim Marco Silva is set to raid City for Kamil Grosicki and Eldin Jakupovic and also wants Omar Elabdellaoui. They say Grosicki would command a fee of £7.7m, Jak a cool £1.8m and Elab-de-mouthful £5.5m from his parent club Olympiakos.

There are too many stories around Grosicki to imagine he’s going to be at City next season. Jakupovic seems an unlikelier target for a Premier League club. He’s an infectious character but not a top-class goalkeeper. At 32 years old, he might fancy a big move but he’s waited a long time to play regularly in England. That would be more likely with The Tigers.

Thursday 1^st June

A player was actually linked with JOINING City this week. Sporting’s Dutch left back Marvin Zeegelaar (right) has been linked before and almost joined Norwich in January. Sport Witness run a story from the Portuguese newspaper A Bola saying City have shown interest but haven’t made a bid.

The blog Football Whispers say that Liverpool, who have been linked with Harry Maguire and Andy Robertson in recent weeks, want Josh Tymon. The 18 year-old is unlikely to sign a professional contract with City and could leave for a compensation payment. Big clubs have certainly watched him but I’d wait for a better source than this.

Friday 2^nd June

The Mirror are selling Kamil Grosicki for us again on Friday. West Ham are the latest club who are supposedly going to pay £7.7m for the Polish winger. I’m not sure how it would go down in LONDON ENGLAND amongst Hammers fans. They’ve not taken to Robert Snodgrass who was excellent for us but has struggled since his £10m move in January.