Philip Buckingham @PJBuckingham The hours are ticking down and it's now looking unlikely that Markus Henriksen will leave #hcafc today.
Ehab clearly thought he would get a fee by taking up the one year option the club had. It was reported that he placed a fee of £6m on him, laughable! If he doesn't leave today, I can see him staying on until next Summer when he can leave for nowt as he'll be out of contract, and able to potentially negotiate a bigger signing on fee. So that would roughly be another £1m on wages down the drain, and for a player Terry isn't going to select unless he does an about turn.
Ehab is not going to be happy, his punt hasn't paid off. Re-newing Henriksen's contract at Prem League wages will not come cheap, looks like we will try to offload him in the next window with a much reduced fee.
Assuming McCann isn’t going to bring Henriksen back into the first team, the club will probably need to pay him off now. Which will mean he can sign for a new club for nowt in 3-4 weeks time. Well played Ehab, you financial genius.
I’ve not followed the going’s on But what would you have done differently? Do we know what city were asking? Do we know what terms Henriksen wanted? Are teams interested? Do we know if McCann wants him? Do we know if his wages increase if he plays further games for us? Do we know if McCann will now play him?
I would have played our newly contract-extended player in the first team. City tried this trick a couple of years ago with Hernandez. Ended up with a similar inadequate outcome for the club.
And what if McCann didn't want him? What if his wages go up five or ten grand. A week based on appearances etc?? And what if Henriksen wants to see his contract out and won't move??
If McCann doesn’t want him, play him to enhance the prospects of a sale. Dropping someone to precipitate a high value transfer evidently doesn’t work. Are his wages going up by 10k? Fair dos. In that case why did Ehab unilaterally extend such a punishing contract for the club last spring?
We only extended his deal to get a fee for him and it’s backfired, costing us £1m, unless we can ship him out in January. Presumably he’ll now join the squad and be played.