Coventry City hit the jackpot with £2.5m double transfer – they made serious profit | OneFootball

Both on and off the pitch, Coventry City struck gold with the signings of Gustavo Hamer and Viktor Gyokeres for a combined fee of £2.5 million.

Having been in League Two as recently as the late 2010s and then coming just a penalty kick away from promotion to the Premier League in 2023, while in the meantime having been homeless on a couple of occasions, it had been a remarkable few years for the Sky Blues.

The fact that in the summer of 2023, this team that had consistently punched above their weight were able to bank over £30 million on just two players suggests just how impressively well run they had become, as well as how good their talent identification is and was.

It also suggests that the two talents they had were extremely special, earning mega-money moves without Premier League promotion having even been secured and on their respective CV’s – but Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer were well worth the attention.

The summer of 2023 saw Coventry, having lost to Luton Town on penalties in the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium, sell Viktor Gyokeres to Portuguese giants Sporting CP for a fee believed to be in the region of 20 million euros, a club record for Sporting, before then cashing in on Gustavo Hamer for £15 million as the Dutchman moved to Sheffield United.

That play-off final marked the end of an era for that side for Coventry ahead of a revamp with their own ambitious spending, but it was an impressive era and one that reaped rewards both on the pitch and, financially, off it.

For two bargain fees, Coventry cashed in on two players that were arguably the best players in the division at the time, and they made immense profit on them.

Viktor Gyokeres began his journey to being a world star with Coventry City

Having come through the academy at Brommapojkarna in Sweden, the always impressive recruitment of Brighton and Hove Albion deemed Viktor Gyokeres promising enough to be their next project.

He is one of the rare cases of the Seagulls selling too early and too low, though, with a few underwhelming loan stints with St Pauli, Swansea City and, finally, Coventry, enough to see them sell the Swede to the Sky Blues permanently in 2021.

Whatever Mark Robins had seen in Gyokeres’ loan stint, whereby he scored three goals in 19 appearances, was clearly special, and he immediately turned into a prolific attacker in the second-tier.

His first full season with Coventry saw him scored 18 goals in 47 matches across all competitions as Coventry finished firmly in the middle-of-the-table, before becoming the driving force behind their push to promotion in the 2022/23 season.

Gyokeres notched 21 goals in the 46-game regular season, as well as a goal in the FA Cup, before putting in a couple of excellent, albeit goalless, all-round performances against Middlesbrough in the play-off semi-finals.

Having been signed from Brighton for a fee of around £1 million, Coventry managed to majorly cash in on a player that went on to become one of the most sought-after strikers in Europe with Sporting ahead of his big-money move to Arsenal.

Now a player destined to win plenty of top level trophies to go with those won in Portugal, he was perhaps unearthed by Brommapojkarna and Brighton, but he was a gem polished up by Coventry.

Gustavo Hamer was immense with Coventry City

A year before Gyokeres moved to Coventry on a permanent basis, and just a few months before Gyokeres’ initial loan move to City, the Sky Blues had brought in Brazil-born former Netherlands youth international Gustavo Hamer from PEC Zwolle.

Having come through the famed academy of Feyenoord in Rotterdam, and having played apart in winning the 2016/17 Eredivisie with the Dutch giants, Hamer almost immediately became a star.

The all-action midfielder proved he was just that, picking up two yellow cards and a red card, as well as an assist, in the opening four games of the 2020/21 campaign after his £1.5 million move from PEC.

His aggression and tenacity didn’t and hasn’t ever really wavered, but his quality really did begin to shine through more so as he helped turn Coventry into perennial promotion hopefuls in the second division.

In his second season at the club, in a season whereby Gyokeres hit those 17 Championship goals, it was Hamer who was to be named their Player of the Year – the first of two successive wins for the versatile midfielder, ahead of the eventual world star Swede.

Having scored nine goals on their way to the play-offs, Hamer then scored the dramatic winning goal in the second-leg at the Riverside against ‘Boro before notching the second-half equaliser against Luton at Wembley.

Hamer did begin the 2023/24 campaign and, even amid the transfer speculation, still put in a strong performance and got an assist in a 2-1 defeat on the opening day against eventual champions Leicester, ahead of his move to Sheffield United.

The two players have gone on to continue to prove themselves to be of immense quality and, for a bargain double deal of £2.5 million, they more than paid off for City and have helped fund their tilt at putting a relatively dark period of time behind them with promotion to the Premier League.