League One Wycombe Wanderers have seen a bid rejected for Barnsley star Luca Connell this transfer window.
The Chairboys missed out a spot in the Championship this season after battling with Birmingham City and Wrexham for much of the previous campaign for a spot in the automatic promotion places.
They ultimately fell at the semi final stage of the League One Play-Offs to eventual winners Charlton Athletic.
Manager Mike Dodds will be hoping to challenge again towards the top of the table, despite the drop off in the second half of the season.
Unfortunately Josh Scowen suffered an ACL injury in April, which will keep him side lined for the start of the 2025/26 campaign. This means that the club will need to replace him and have already submitted a bid.
Barnsley Reject Wycombe Wanderers Bid for Luca Connell
The Chairboys are keen to add Luca Connell from League One rivals Barnsley this summer, but have suffered rejection in their attempts to land the midfielder so far. They submitted a “sizeable bid” according to Bucks Free Press, which has been rejected.
However, Mike Dodds side are expected to approach with another bid which will have to be in the region of “seven figures” to be accepted. Barnsley are in a position where they have to sell players this summer and Connell could be one of the names out the door.
It is unknown at this time if Wycombe will meet the Tykes’ valuation of the player, or if Connell would be willing to move to Mike Dodds’ side.
Luca Connell Statistics
Luca Connell has been one of the stand out performers last season, picking up three spots in the SofaScore TOTW, playing 44 games and picking up an average rating of 7.03.
Barnsley’s official website describe the player as “An industrious midfielder with a wonderfully creative left foot”
Journalist’s View
Wycombe Wanderers stormed to the automatic promotion spots at the start of last season and at stages even looked like they could rival Birmingham City. But after losing Matt Bloomfield and suffering a few player set-backs it was always going to be an uphill battle to keep up the momentum. They did hold onto a spot in the play-offs but were unable to overcome Nathan Jones’ Charlton Athletic.
This season will be a different ballgame, it is the first summer under Mike Dodds and fans will be hoping (perhaps optimistically) for a similar push. This does appear to be a far more competitive league roster, but there are still clubs such as Huddersfield Town willing to splash out seven figures on a regular basis to pluck the top talent from the division.
Wycombe will not be able to outspend their opposition, so they will likely have to “box clever” and look for opportunities in the marketplace and utilise Dodds’ talents in developmental coaching to get the best out of some players who are not quite there yet. Connell is arguably one of the stand out midfielders in the division and the opportunity to sign him for a lower figure than he is worth has come due to Barnsley’s need to sell this summer transfer window.
That is the sort of opportunity the club should be looking at, whilst their stock is still high after narrowly missing out on promotion. The only question mark is whether Dodds has what it takes to compete with his own squad and his own side towards the top of the table.
They have added signings in James Tilley, Dan Casey and Caolan Boyd-Munce so far but have seen the likes of Joe Low depart so it could be a busy window for the Chairboys.