Brighton and Hove Albion have been linked with Sheffield United’s centre-half Jack O’Connell for a while now owing to the way our apparent chase of Reading’s Liam Moore has stalled.
With a number of speculated bids in the media for Moore falling down as Reading continue to value him higher than we are apparently prepared to go – despite the player handing in a transfer request as previously covered – our back up option seemed to be 24-year-old O’Connell who would be available for far less, although still a healthy fee given the modern game.
The Argus reported earlier today that they understood we had now cooled our interest in O’Connell having seen our latest bid rejected by the Bramall Lane outfit and they also stated that they believed the most recent bid to be less than the £8million other reports had claimed.
A slightly later report from Sky Sports however suggested that we were willing to pay £6million for his services and therefore the implication is (to me at least) we would go back in with a slightly better offer.
Especially as at £6million O’Connell would be more cost sensible than Moore as they tally our three bids as going to a maximum of £8million.
I guess by 3pm somebody else will be claiming we never had an interest at all.