Hull City’s owner aims to keep Philogene, but concedes that he will not stand in the way if the youngster wishes to join West Ham or another interested club.
Jaden Philogene has taken the Championship by storm over the past year. In just 32 appearances he found the back of the net 12 times and assisted 6 goals. At just 22-years-old these stats are incredible and watching him play you can tell he’s a special talent.
Unsurprisingly, this has attracted a number of clubs who could all look to sign England’s next big talent. Alongside the Hammers, Everton and,
more concerningly, Barcelona are keen on signing him. The Spanish giants could make a deal incredibly hard to get over the line as it’s hard to imagine he’d want to move to East London over the Nou Camp.
To make matters worse, Hull’s owner Acun Illicali is in no rush to sell the winger which could drive up his price drastically.
“Yes, everything is true [about Barcelona’s interest”, Illicali told talkSPORT, “but if you ask me, I told our fans that I would sell nobody. My idea in football is not to make money, my idea in football is to make a strong and bigger club.”
“To make a bigger club, sometimes if a player says I want to go, that’s a different case. For me, one player change is not the end of the world, but for any of my players, I never want to ruin their career or their mood by pushing them because of the contract that I have.”
“In that case, if Jaden wants to move and he says he wants to go somewhere, this is not something that we can do too much because it is his life. I love all my boys, so I’m responsible for their career as well so they don’t need to play with us if they don’t want to play with us.”
Considering that he’s now officially confirmed Barcelona’s interest, if our Irons do want to sign him they need to act with haste. We’ve seen how well Tim Steidten can sell the West Ham project to players and if Philogene can be made to feel like a vital part of the system that the club wants to play then there may be a slither of hope that a deal can be reached.
