Wesley Fofana

[moore_94]

L’Équipe report that Leicester City are expected to match West Ham United’s €35m bid for 19-year-old St Étienne central defender Wesley Fofana in the coming hours.

 

The Foxes still have the teenager’s favour, who has had a 5-year provisional contract agreement with them for weeks.

 

Brendan Rodgers absolutely wants the player and will insist that Leicester up their last offer, €32m, by €3m, to match what the Hammers are offering.

 

But manager Claude Puel is standing firm – he has not interest in selling the player during this transfer window. ASSE would have sold at this price already if they clubs making the offers were willing to do what Arsenal did last summer: allow Fofana to spend the 2020/21 campaign on loan with them.

 

But Rodgers wants the player now and Puel doesn’t want to hear it. The newspaper speculates that if an offer of €40m comes in, Les Verts might be forced to accept…

[StanSP]

Had a dream I went to Wales and saw Fofana at a service station. Steve Walsh (ex-scout) and Kolo Toure were with him and they were all wearing Leicester gear. Asked for a picture and they obliged.

 

Based on that, I don't know what route they're taking but he's definitely coming 

[Marshall Cockney Fox]

Were getting mugged off here. Walk away. He's 19. CBs are far from proven at that age. Ala Mr Stones. I think the price has gone a bit steep now. If he were that much of an amazing prospect the big boys would be circling 

[UniFox21]

3 minutes ago, Marshall Cockney Fox said:

Were getting mugged off here. Walk away. He's 19. CBs are far from proven at that age. Ala Mr Stones. I think the price has gone a bit steep now. If he were that much of an amazing prospect the big boys would be circling 

Whilst I agree on the price aspect, but if the big clubs were circling he wouldn't come here.

[The whole world smiles]

4 minutes ago, Marshall Cockney Fox said:

Were getting mugged off here. Walk away. He's 19. CBs are far from proven at that age. Ala Mr Stones. I think the price has gone a bit steep now. If he were that much of an amazing prospect the big boys would be circling 

And sign who at CB? For how much (roughly) 

[Spudulike]

4 minutes ago, Marshall Cockney Fox said:

Were getting mugged off here. Walk away. He's 19. CBs are far from proven at that age. Ala Mr Stones. I think the price has gone a bit steep now. If he were that much of an amazing prospect the big boys would be circling 

Totally agree. Let ASSE sweat and see what happens on deadline day. Get a loan in with option to buy like the Under deal. 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

Going after players like Fofana - a 19 year old CB for €30-40m - also illustrates that players like Darnell Johnson (22 year old) will never make it here. I thought Johnson was also around 19, and shocked to see he’s of an age where if he was going to breakthrough surely it would have happened by now.

[Blanchflower78]

Just hope that the new training ground will help attract and develop similar standard players. Have to become more self sufficient with youth coming through, examples of Chilwell, hamza (to a degree) and Barnes have been great. Real sustainability comes with a regular input to the matchday team/squad.

[Ricey]

32 minutes ago, bmouth_fox said:

Going after players like Fofana - a 19 year old CB for €30-40m - also illustrates that players like Darnell Johnson (22 year old) will never make it here. I thought Johnson was also around 19, and shocked to see he’s of an age where if he was going to breakthrough surely it would have happened by now.

We seem to hang on to players until they are quite old now, often not giving them a chance until they are in their 20's. It used to be the case the good young players broke through at 17/18, but even he likes of Barnes and Choudhury were into their 20's before they became fairly established members of the squad.

 

I couldn't believe that Dewsbury-Hall was 22 and only a year younger than Ndidi, Tielemans and Iheanacho!

[Marshall Cockney Fox]

49 minutes ago, The whole world smiles said:

And sign who at CB? For how much (roughly) 

I think we've over shown our hand here. So to buy any CB now will cost a lot of money. Maybe a loan is best after all. As to who - I've no idea. But I'm not paid as a full-time scout!!

[FoxesWalk]

IMO this is one where waiting till the end of the window might pay off. Brinkmanship from St Etienne, but they need money and he is their most saleable asset. 

[oxtonfox]

I would walk away from St Etienne and Fofana now and direct the guns to Jonathan Tah and Bayer Leverkusen. He looks a better fit for the Premier League. This money scramble for Fofana is getting comical and it sounds like West Ham would pay more.  Let's leave it now 

[Bezzanator89]

It's on! Fofana is such a tease.

[BKLFox]

1 hour ago, moore_94 said:

L’Équipe report that Leicester City are expected to match West Ham United’s €35m bid for 19-year-old St Étienne central defender Wesley Fofana in the coming hours.

 

The Foxes still have the teenager’s favour, who has had a 5-year provisional contract agreement with them for weeks.

 

Brendan Rodgers absolutely wants the player and will insist that Leicester up their last offer, €32m, by €3m, to match what the Hammers are offering.

 

But manager Claude Puel is standing firm – he has not interest in selling the player during this transfer window. ASSE would have sold at this price already if they clubs making the offers were willing to do what Arsenal did last summer: allow Fofana to spend the 2020/21 campaign on loan with them.

 

But Rodgers wants the player now and Puel doesn’t want to hear it. The newspaper speculates that if an offer of €40m comes in, Les Verts might be forced to accept…

How can this be?

I understood contract talks can only happen between buying club and player if the parent club agree they can meet but all/most papers report ASSE don’t want to sell in which case why say they can meet?

[murphy]

Way too much.  We need wave ASSE a cheery goodbye and wish them all the luck with the looming financial morass they are apparently heading into.  

[SecretPro]

Played 16 games. £35m. OK then. 

[moore_94]

2 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

How can this be?

I understood contract talks can only happen between buying club and player if the parent club agree they can meet but all/most papers report ASSE don’t want to sell in which case why say they can meet?

Happens all the time

 

https://www.inbrief.co.uk/football-law/football-player-under-contract-approach-clubs/

 

“Often a club wishing to buy a player from another club will contact the player directly to try and persuade him to join them should a bidding war for that player ensue. Also, if the club wishing to sign the player feels his current club would be unwilling to sell, they may contact the player to unsettle him at his current club and thus persuade him to hand in a transfer request.

 

The footballer’s representatives are likely to have a big involvement in setting up a meeting between the club and his player. The player’s agent will be the first port of call for the club wishing to gain the services of the player and often it is the agent which makes the first contact with potential clubs touting the services of the player he represents.”

 

At the same time as trying to convince Saint Etienne to sell we were probably talking to Fofanas agent about the kind of contract he would want

 

As long as you don’t go to far with it, like Liverpool did with actually meeting Van Dijk when Southampton told them to do one, its normal, every club does it

[Jobyfox]

I would expect West Ham to offer more. Their desperation for players is greater than ours. They were poor last season and could easily have been relegated. 

 

I think sometimes you just just have to make a final bid and walk away. This might be the best long term investment, but at some point we’ve got to focus on the short term and what we need this season. 

 

There are a few CBs out there that could do a job in support of JE and CS on loan. It wouldn’t cost as much and then we could reassess next year. 

 

WF might be a good long term investment, but the best way to make sure we get players is to try and regularly secure a place at the right end of the Premier League 

[Deeg67]

1 hour ago, Marshall Cockney Fox said:

Were getting mugged off here. Walk away. He's 19. CBs are far from proven at that age. Ala Mr Stones. I think the price has gone a bit steep now. If he were that much of an amazing prospect the big boys would be circling 

Agreed - it’s too much.  Time to say goodbye and good luck and try and lock down a secondary target.

[Scotch]

18 minutes ago, FoxesWalk said:

IMO this is one where waiting till the end of the window might pay off. Brinkmanship from St Etienne, but they need money and he is their most saleable asset. 

I just don't think we can take the chance of going to deadline day. 

 

We are in urgent need of a CB and I would hate to see us miss out on one because we waited till the last minute to get the best price and a late hiccup cost us. 

 

It's not worth the gamble. 

[HitchinFox]

Would love to get Fofana, but the fee discussed seems waaaay too high. 

 

Also, we've established a bit of a reputation, as a club, of both insisting on getting our valuation when selling players, as well as not paying over the odds when buying. So to discard that reputation for an unproven (although hugely talented, agreed) player would be a bit of a shame.

 

 

[Raw Dykes]

I think this has gone too far. We should walk away from this now. We should be able to pick up 2 promising, young players for that amount.

[Stevosevic]

13 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

How can this be?

I understood contract talks can only happen between buying club and player if the parent club agree they can meet but all/most papers report ASSE don’t want to sell in which case why say they can meet?

clubs don't bid for players generally unless they've spoken to the players agent and it's been made clear the player would want to join for X amount. 

 

Very naive if you think this doesn't happen all the time 

 

 

[Fuch Me Moore]

Think we will see movement on this today

[urban.spaceman]

Just now, Fuch Me Moore said:

Think we will see movement on this today

That movement will probably just involve him liking our Bebo page.