Good luck to him. For one reason or another it never really worked out for him here (Bradshaw ahead of him, Whitney’s tactics) which is a shame because if I remember correctly, his scoring record in the youth and reserve teams was very good. I remember him in the second half at Rushall preseason asking Leahy for the ball on numerous occasions, only to be bypassed time after time. He then proceeded to question Leahy’s choice and urge him to ‘trust him with the ball’ - not a good sign if your team mates aren’t confident in your abilities, preseason friendly or not.
He showed glimpses of what he can do but did flatter to deceive. Cook and now Ferrier would have been ahead of him this season, but I do think we would have seen an improvement in him if he’d played alongside Cook. Hopefully we have a sell-on clause inserted in the deal in the hope he comes good, but we have done well to get the deal we have, especially seeing as he could have gone on a free earlier in the summer.
I also wish him the best. However having seen him play for all the time he has been at the club I was amazed he never learnt the basic skill of trapping the ball. And if he had so many balls lumped up to him, how come he never won many headers let alone scored many with his head?
I thought it was a mistake to take up the option of an extra year, but what do I know!
Good luck to him.
Presumably DK will be given an undisclosed amount of an undisclosed fee to strengthen the team.
I don’t know why everything is so often "undisclosed " as this would be an easy way for the club to be more open with the fans. I always find it irritating.
I agree. He had a whole season to prove his worth and I don’t think he did that. To say he didn’t have service is misleading: he had one of the best number 10s in League 1 providing passes for him. How many times did he have clear cut chances that he totally fecked up. I think we have done some great business there. Now we need to spend the money wisely on a central midfielder and some defensive and attacking cover.
It’s a good job Wimbledon, Bristol Rovers and Coventry don’t read this forum……….they could have saved themselves a fair bit of time and trouble watching Bakayoko and even making audacious monetary bids for him.
To not release him when it looked likely and then get a fee plus any sell on clause is good work by the club
I always find that one way to judge how a player is rated by the fans is the reaction when the team is announced and a player is not named. I never heard any groans when he wasn’t named
I suppose from the club’s point of view it is beneficial for the amount to remain undisclosed. If opposing teams or potential signings knew we’d just received £200,000 for Bakayoko, they would be likely to increase the amount they would want. A certain Mr Bonser may also want to hide it from the fans so that we don’t bemoan the lack of signings / amount spent on transfers.
Wish him nothing but success on an individual level.
It is a gamble by Coventry but not an altogether daft one. Coached by a manager who played centre-forward at the highest level rather than a physio might just turn him into the player some of us thought he could be.
It is good business for the Club, taking a relatively sizeable fee for a player who couldnt get in the team.
There is a good player in there - stupid to suggest otherwise, bearing in mind the number of Clubs willing to part with the cash - together with his only full season coinciding with the shambles of last year.But nevertheless , he just hasn’t done it - the stats don’t lie.
Now its down to a replacement and as said previously, who is going to come to basically sit on the bench. Another hungry non league lad perhaps?
Think he would have thrived as a supporting forward rather than number 9. I always remember his assist in Whitney’s first league game (as full time manager) against Wimbledon which was reminiscent of the ball he played for Dobson against Northampton.
A lot happened between those two games and in that time you have to feel we never played to his strengths.
The Sky Blues forum’s Bakayoko thread currently running to 16 pages. Opinion seems evenly divided between “What a waste of money” and “Let’s give the lad a chance”.
Just amazes me that some posters believed he was gods gift to football.
Who, or what were they watching?
Good business to get a fee for the lad (which we will still be owed in 2023 by the way, just prior to their next receivership). So there will be no monies up front for us to use, just an ‘asset’ in a certain pension fund portfolio.
