Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson has addressed speculation over the future of Kwame Poku amid links with Rangers.
The 23-year-old has been the standout performer for the Post so far this season in League One and is said to be attracting interest from the Premier League and English Championship – with the Light Blues also reportedly considering an attempt to take the attacker to the Scottish Premiership. Poku has netted 10 goals from midfield so far this season with the latest coming with a hat-trick in the rout of Cambridge United.
And with transfer murmurs growing, Ferguson has admitted there is a contingency plan in place for Poku’s exit. Speaking to Posh +, he said: “We’ve had speculation about our players in all my time here. And I see it as a good thing because if no-one is talking about your players it means you’re not doing very well as a team. That speculation is only going to crank up in January and clearly I will have to manage the situation regarding certain players.
“I don’t think anything will happen with Kwame (Poku). We have a safety net with him and with Ricky (Jade Jones) as we would get compensation for both of them given their ages. I never go mad with signings in January, but we will look to recruit one player in one position and that will also depend on one other thing happening.”
But with Poku only contracted at London Road until the end of the season, Rangers could look to pull off a familiar transfer trick. The Light Blues have previously brought Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey to Scotland for a minimal compensation fees due to cross-border compensation rules. Speaking to the Hard Truth podcast, Peterborough owner Darragh MacAnthony reckons that clubs in England could be forced to pay a whopping £6million for the star – but Rangers could land him for a snip of that with Aribo leaving Charlton for £300K in 2019 and Bassey departing Leicester for £230K in 2022.
MacAnthony said on Poku: “They’ll look at how long he’s been with you? He’ll have been with us four years, he’ll have played probably 200 games, we’d have paid nearly £500k in add-ons already.
“They’ll look at the offers we’ve had. So we’ll be able to straight away go into the tribunal and show them offers from six months ago that were of the value of three-and-three, £3m up front and £3m in add-ons. We will expect minimum that plus, plus, plus and plus.
“A fair tribunal will look and go ‘yeah, you’ve spent £500k, you’ve developed him’ and the club that is trying to sign him they’ll look at it and go ‘that’s a big club with money, you’re going to have to pay whatever’. So that’s how they would value that.
“(The fact we’ve made him a big offer) plays into it to. We’d expect the tribunal to be very fair to not discourage clubs from being in that situation when you get richer clubs coming in and to make them pay a fair price.”