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Sunderland have made ANOTHER offer for Lorient central defender Lamine Kone according to reports in France today.
Footmercato.net claim we have not given up on Kone despite the deal falling through a few hundred times since the transfer window opened on January the 1st. According to the report, we have made an offer to sign the defender outright now, as opposed to the loan with a view to a permanent deal offer we made last time we bid for the 26-year-old.
The report goes on to suggest that we will offer Kone a much better deal in the hopes of finally getting the deal done.
Lorient vice-chariman Alex Hayes, who has been involved in every stage of the deal since we first made contact with Lorient, has told Ouest France that Sunderland have made Lorient an offer that they could not refuse:
Sunderland have come back with a firm offer that we couldn't refuse. The ball is therefore in Lamine Kone's camp. He has to make his decision in the coming hours.
With one central defender due to sign, another is set to depart, with Sebastian Coates close to finalising a move to Sporting CP. According to A Bola, Coates will sign a loan deal with the Lisbon side with a view to the deal becoming permanent in the summer, for a fee believed to be around five million pounds. That would represent a profit for Sunderland should Sporting elect to purchase Coates on a permanent basis.
Coates was signed in the summer after he impressed whilst on loan at the end of last season, but has fallen down the pecking order since Sam Allardyce arrived at the club, and it appears as if his spell at the Stadium of Light is already over.
