Coventry City urged to make Haji Wright transfer call in January - "Doug King knows" what to do | OneFootball

With eight goals in nine games, Haji Wright has had a sensational start to 2025-26 and FLW's Sky Blues fan pundit believes that he'll stay in January.

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…

Haji Wright has enjoyed a sensational start to the 2025-26 season for Coventry City, and he's now being tipped to stay with the club beyond the January transfer window.

Sky Blues fans are loving life at the moment. City are top of the Championship after nine games, and they're the only unbeaten team left in the division, averaging three goals a game, and a return to the Premier League for the first time since 2001 is already looking more likely than at any point over the last quarter of a century.

And the EFL Championship table isn't the only one with them sitting atop it.

At the top of the Championship top goalscorers list is Haji Wright, whose eight goals in nine games have been instrumental in getting Coventry to the top of the table.

But with such form comes the attention of bigger clubs, so FLW have spoken to our Coventry City fan pundit Chris Deez about the striker, and whether the Sky Blues will be able to hold onto Wright beyond the next transfer window.

Coventry CIty urged to hold onto Haji Wright in January if interest emerges

Chris hasn't always been Haji Wright's biggest cheerleader, and has a specific reason for being so.

"I've been so critical of him, especially last season. He came back from his four-month injury and after the Sunderland hat-trick he was just horrifically bad for the rest of the season, and especially the play-offs as well," Chris told FLW.

The thing with Haji is that he's always got that dip in form in him. He's not consistent."

He's happy with the start that Coventry have made to the new season, but is also aware that this could be partly due to the fixture scheduling computer.

"We've had a great start to the season, don't get me wrong, but it's been our easiest start to a season ever," Chris added.

"When the fixtures came through, all Cov fans said this is the one season when we can finally start off good, because we had the easier teams to start off the season, which hasn't happened very often for us. We always have difficult starts.

"And while the upcoming international break will be a rest for many Championship players, Haji is about to go on international duty with the USA. He normally gets injured and has to get back to us early, so that's a concern."

"There's been interest in him in the past and I think there's almost certainly going to be some in January, but we know how hard it is to make those big transfers happen in January.

"We won't want to let him go because even if we got good money, he'd be hard to replace at that time of year and I think other clubs know that we would ask for more money at that time of year as well."

Chris is also aware that Coventry cannot simply sell him in January without having a deal in place to replace the striker, as well.

"I think we'd have to have a real quality striker lined up and ready, with the deal good to go and ready to sign on the dotted line before letting Haji go because if he goes we're absolutely stuffed because we cannot survive and cope with Ellis Simms as our main striker," Chris said.

"So, I think there's going to be interest, but I think he'll stay.

"Even if he scores another 10 goals between now and January, I don't see him leaving because he's an integral part of the squad and we can't survive without him.

"Lampard knows that, Doug King knows that. They're not going to let him go and I'd like to think he'd want to see the season through as a minimum and see if he can fire us towards the Premier League."

Selling Haji Wright in January would be a gamble for Coventry City, in more ways than one

While Chris criticises Haji Wright over his "inconsistency", there is one important way in which he has been consistent over the last five years.

He's hit double-figures for league goalscoring in each of the last five seasons, for Sønderjyske Fodbold in Denmark and Antalyaspor in Turkey, as well as in each of the last two seasons for the Sky Blues. And he's already 80% of the way there for 2025-26, with less than a fifth of this Championship season having been played.

But his goalscoring record will attract interest from predators, and it's clear that there will be interest in him during the January transfer window. But the January transfer window isn't like the summer one.

Clubs know who needs which players by the new year, and the price they're going to put on a player's head may well alter accordingly.

Having signed a four-year contract with the club upon his £7.7 million transfer from Antalyasor in 2023, they are under no obligation to sell the player, and Wright's form in front of goal would seem to indicate that the player is happy at the CBS Arena too, although the pull of the Premier League can be strong for any ambitious player.

Should the Sky Blues still be at or near the top of the table by January 1, the club will be within touching distance of a place in the Premier League, a prize that could be worth at least £200 million to them in television money, commercial reviews and, even were they to be relegated back after just one season, parachute payments, and it would be foolish to sell the player on at such a crucial time for less than the absolute maximum that they could get for him.

This knowledge also applies to other clubs. Were Coventry to sell Wright at the start of the transfer window, every other club with a striker in which they may take an interest would most likely increase their prices as well, meaning that any financial advantage brought about by signing him in the first place could quickly disappear, should they not already have a replacement ready and raring to go.

And even then, any new signing is a gamble. Even the players who look the best fit on paper can not gel with a new team's style of play. There are no guarantees that, even if Coventry do have a player ready to drop straight into Wright's position, that he would work as effectively as their current option is at the moment.

And Wright has been one of the most impressive performers in the Championship so far this season.

He's scored in each of his last three league games for the club, and scored braces in the Sky Blues' recent 4-0 win against Millwall and their 7-1 demolition of Queens Park Rangers in August. This season's statistics show him exceeding his personal xG of 7.49, while things might have been even better for him; he's missed six 'big chances' so far this season.