A look ahead to what business we could end up doing tomorrow
Last January, Adam Le Fondre returned on loan as Zach Clough was sold to Nottingham Forest. It was a case of an old favourite coming back while we sold our best-performing player. 12 months on, and history seems set to repeat itself.
Gary Madine has been excellent for us this season. Double-figures in terms of goals, the focal point of our attack, and even in the embarrassing days of August and September he was still playing reasonably well most weeks, even if he couldn`t find the back of the net during that run. This month has resulted in interest. Hull and Sunderland were linked, but a move to the former seemed a sideways move, while the Newcastle fan going the latter seemed nigh on impossible.
Another interested club though was Cardiff, and with the proposition of Premier League football over League One action (if we go down), you could forgive him for being interested. Once the Bluebirds came back in with a couple of bids today, it just felt inevitable that he won`t be our player this time tomorrow, and it looks like a deal may be agreed. At the risk of sour grapes, whether Madine will actually be a success at Cardiff remains to be seen. I think here, he had a system almost built around him which he surely won`t get in South Wales.
A replacement appears to be lined up in Dutchman Michiel Kramer. While the last 18 months at Feyenoord haven`t been fruitful, his record in Dutch football before that seemed good, with his ADO Den Haag form enough to catch of the eye of one of the Netherlands` heavyweights. On paper, it looks a good replacement, if all this even happens, but letting your main striker go half way through a season rather than the summer is either brave or utterly stupid. I`ll let you decide.
Which leads us to the return of Chungy. If he wants to play for South Korea this summer, he needs to leave Palace. Frank de Boer seemed to fancy him at the start of the season, Roy Hodgson absolutely doesn`t, and we somehow have got in a position to land him. He struggled with the physicality of the Championship when he was last with us, but I think a bit of that has come out of the league,and seemed to play quite well behind the striker for a brief period from being moved there by Neil Lennon, to leaving shortly after. I wouldn`t expect miracles, he hasn`t played regularly, but it`s a position we`ve been in need of just as much as a striker.
Tyler Walker has also been mooted, which I can`t get too excited about really, and then comes the age old question: could someone take Chris Taylor off our hands, in any case it`ll be a busy day for Wanderers tomorrow, and time for those in charge of the club and it`s social media channels to brace themselves if we sell the crown jewel.