'Fulham or Everton' tipped to beat Coventry City to Middlesbrough ace | OneFootball

Coventry City have been linked to Middlesbrough's Hayden Hackney but Premier League competition is expected from Fulham and Everton...

Middlesbrough star Hayden Hackney could be a player in demand for Coventry City and other promoted sides if the Championship Player of the Season fails to gain promotion with Boro.

Hayden Hackney has been out of action for the last few weeks but the midfielder has been one of the division's standout players and follows in the footsteps of Gus Hamer and Crysencio Summerville in recent seasons by scooping the award.

Middlesbrough have been inside the top two for eight of the 44 gameweeks so far, but they are likely to miss out on automatic promotion despite spending longer in the first and second than Coventry City this season. Hackney has 38 league appearances with six goals and eight assists.

Cov need to start finalising their Premier League shortlist of players, with Hackney reportedly on Coventry's list of targets already. He is likely to be of interest to a number of top flight clubs this summer, given that he is in the final 12 months of his contract at The Riverside in June.

Coventry City verdict lands on Middlesbrough midfielder Hayden Hackney

Football League World's Coventry fan pundit Chris has provided his thoughts on Hackney. We asked if this is a sign of Doug King’s ambition, or if he would still prefer more experienced targets to be lined up. Also, what would a fair fee look like for Hackney?

He said: "I like Hayden Hackney a lot. Don't get me wrong, he is obviously a fantastic player and incredibly important for Middlesbrough.

"He's not really shown up in the past few months, which coincides with Middlesbrough slipping away and bottling their own chance at winning the league. I've seen £15-20 million being touted around for him, which I think is a fair price.

"This isn't his first great season for Boro. It's not like it's a flash in the pan, he's had a fair few good seasons now — showing how important he is and showing how good he is. Honestly, though? I don't think he's a player we should be focusing on signing.

"If we're spending £20 million on a centre mid, I'd rather — obviously, we've got [Frank] Onyeka because we've signed him on a permanent now — but I'd rather keep [Matt] Grimes and then use that £20 million on one or two more experienced centre mids.

"Maybe from abroad? Maybe from around Europe? Maybe a little bit older? A few years older than Hackney and they've got that bit of experience and grit about them.

"My worry is if we are signing the likes of Hackney or players like [Jaden] Philogene, who I've seen us linked with as well, to me that screams that we are trying to build a Championship super team for us to inevitably go back down and then try and come straight back up.

"I would much rather we follow Sunderland's model. I know Doug King spoke about it before and he annoyed Sunderland fans a bit but that doesn't take much to happen. I'd rather follow their model of spending. I think they spent about £120 million or something.

"They went out and bought a few new players but look how well it's turned out for them. They have had a fantastic season and they're nowhere near close to going down. I am pretty sure there are only two/three/four of those players they brought in who don't play regularly.

"They are still also using a fair few of their players from the Championship last season with the team that got them promoted."

Everton and Fulham tipped to beat Coventry City to Hayden Hackney

On who will beat Coventry to Hackney and what they will do instead, Chris added: "Doug King is obviously a very smart businessman. Very frugal, he's not going to want to go out and spend 100s and 100s of millions. Even if we had that kind of money to spend, I don't think he would.

"He's very tempered. He's very cautious. He's obviously going to have a list of players and he's going to have spoken to Frank [Lampard] about next season. He's going to have plans and all the numbers and finances, and what we are going to do in terms of raising the wage cap.

"I've heard £50,000? Which I think is probably fine and enough. I think we can attract some semi-decent players on that kind of money. To be fair, the other thing with Hackney is that other bigger clubs are going to come in for him.

"I've heard teams like Fulham and Everton linked with moves for him. I can't imagine he would want to come to Coventry over either of those and I can't imagine we would be able to match what those clubs are offering.

"So, a brilliant player. But probably not one that we need to be looking at. I think that he's probably above our level or not quite worth the money when we are going to have so little to spend."