Coventry City concerns raised over Kevin Denkey transfer - Nottingham Forest alternative named | OneFootball

FLW's Coventry City fan pundit has had his say on the transfer link to Kevin Denkey, and why there are some serious concerns at the club...

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Coventry City have been linked with Kevin Denkey of MLS side FC Cincinatti, with a £13 million price tag set on the 25-year-old striker.

The priority for Frank Lampard and co. is to gain promotion to the Premier League, but they will be eyeing targets for that and for the possibility of remaining a Championship club as well.

However, Coventry are looking at players like Denkey now, despite him only playing for Cincinnati for a couple of seasons. As reported by Alan Nixon, both Cov and Middlesbrough are interested in Denkey, who was once the record transfer for the MLS.

He scored 66 and assisted 20 in 152 games for Cercle Brugge and had 20 goals and three assists thus far in 39 games in America. However, a return to Europe could already be in the offing this summer via Coventry.

Coventry City concerns raised over Kevin Denkey transfer link

Football League World spoke to our Coventry fan pundit Chris Deez to get his reaction to the latest link to a striker, and whether he is the sort of profile they want for the Premier League or if there is better out there for a similar price. He said: "Kevin Denkey is a name that is completely new to me.

"I have never heard of the lad. I've looked him up and looked at a couple of highlights videos. I don't know where we keep getting linked with these incredibly random names from.

"Especially from the MLS. I don't know if it's the Haji Wright link? I don't know if he is giving us tips and little bits of scouting advice on players that he knows from back home. The lad has had a pretty good season last season from Cincinnati.

"He's only scored once for them this season, however, and he spent some time over in Bruges, where he had another couple of indifferent seasons there and a couple of really good seasons.

"He scored 27 in the league about two or three years ago. But I really want us to start being linked with some players who have, whether it be Premier League experience or not, but at least some elite experience.

"And also just proven, with a proven track record. Denkey seems fine in the last couple of seasons, but the few before that he was scoring one, two, and six league goals. So, you know, inconsistent and indifferent.

"What I really want Cov to do, maybe not in an ideal world, but say Nottingham Forest go down and are relegated to the Championship and we go up, then I'd like to be looking at someone like Chris Wood.

"He's a proven, high-end Championship, and — in recent seasons — Premier League striker. That's the kind of calibre of player we should be looking for. Hopefully, if we go up, our wage budget and wage cap will increase significantly.

"It has to; it has to if we want to survive and want to compete."

Coventry City concerns emerge over retaining key players and where their replacements come from

Chris added that he is concerned about the club's strategy when considering other failed signings from abroad and when factoring in that some of Coventry's star players are possibly set to leave, irrespective of promotion.

He concluded: "It's all well and good unearthing these little random gems from overseas and America, but just because teams like Brentford and Brighton have done it so incredibly successfully, I feel like other teams are just constantly chasing that.

"We've signed the likes of Raphael [Borges Rodrigues], who's on loan at Wigan Athletic, and proving himself to be completely bang average. We got him from obscurity in Australia [Jahnoah] Markelo, again, completely out of nowhere.

"Like, I'm not saying we should be linked with players who have got 20 years of Premier League experience or anything mental like that. I don't want us to be signing players in their mid 30s all the time, but we need those solid foundations.

"We can't go up with a team full of youngsters. Even if we do go up, we're not going to keep Haji Wright. I think the offers will come in for him. I don't think we're going to keep [Milan] van Ewijk. I don't think we'll keep Rudo (Jack Rudoni) for particularly long.

"Carl Rushworth, at this rate, might end up costing us £30 million from Brighton. So, we've got to be smart. We can't keep spending whatever. This Denkey lad has been linked for £13 million.

"That is a lot of money to spend on an unproven player when we've seen, especially in recent years, players and managers from the MLS very rarely translate well over to the Premier League — even to the Championship."