The £4.3m fee for January Portsmouth target still to make Championship breakthrough
Pompey’s chase of the FC Zurich man proved futile, with Coventry City paying £4.3m for a signing yet to feature for Frank Lampard’s side in the Championship.
He was a January target identified as an option who could bolster Pompey attacking resources desperately in need of strengthening.
FC Zurich winger Jahnoah Markelo was seen as possessing the kind of ‘Championship ready’ attributes required, as the Blues pursued a deal for the Suriname man in the winter window.
No minutes yet for Pompey target who moved for £4.3m
Unfortunately, Pompey weren’t the only side keen on the 23-year-old with rivals in Holland and England also chased his signature.
As January progressed, it became apparent Pompey’s interest was not progressing into a deal to land the former FC Twente and Go Ahead Eagles as alternative options were considered.
The reasons for that crystalised as the window reached its climax, with second-tier leaders Coventry City confirming they’d landed Markelo on a four-and-a-half-year deal.
Likewise, with reports in Switzerland suggesting the Sky Blues paid 5m Euros (£4.3m) to land the Amsterdam-born man, it was apparent Fratton Park was never likely to be his destination.
That kind of money is evidently way beyond Pompey’s means at present, with the £1.27m paid to Sydney FC for Hayden Matthews a year ago a 15-year high for the club.
Yet it appears Coventry can shell out that kind of money for a player but not expect instant returns from Markelo, with the suggestion his signing is for the ‘longer term’ and not necessarily the here and now.
That is apparent with the versatile operator yet to play a minute of football for his new side, over two weeks since his signing was completed.
With Swiss football in its winter hiatus and Markelo not reporting for an FC Zurich training camp as his future was resolved, the player wasn’t deemed ready for Championship action after his Coventry move was sealed.
Now the leader’s boss, Frank Lampard, has to decide the pathway for Markelo as the player gets clear training weeks in the bank for his new club.
Coventry face Middlesbrough on Monday in a mouth-watering top-of-the-table Championship clash, but, according to Lampard, the player is still in a settling-in period.
Speaking about Markelo’s condition to Coventry Live, he said: ‘Very good, training well, getting fitter.
‘So we’ll see, he’s got another nice long week for him to get training and get accustomed to it and to adapt a little bit to what we’re doing.
‘But he’s trained really well and been very good around the place. So yeah, very happy.’
Another Coventry winger with Pompey links is going through a similar dearth of football, as Minhyeok Yang finds minutes on the pitch hard to come by.
Markelo needs to ‘get accustomed’ to new surroundings
That’s after the South Korean was recalled by parent club Spurs and sent to his new club - where he’s so far seen just 31 minutes of league action.
Coventry assistant boss Joe Edwards said a couple of weeks ago: ‘Mini’s come in and looked good in training, showed some really nice bits in the game against Stoke.
‘I think one of the difficult things for him is he’s come in to play predominantly on the left for us and Ephron (Mason-Clark) is in outstanding form and physically in as good a condition as probably I’ve seen him since we’ve been here.’