Lincoln City sold Ethan Erhahon in the summer for a fee thought to be around £750,000, with appearances, but it was a saga that seemed to drag on behind the scenes.
The story was that Wigan were interested in him, then at the last minute, Bolton’s name emerged. For City fans, both were a surprise when a Championship move had been on the cards, but such is life.
Erhahon has taken time to settle at Bolton, but earned rave reviews this weekend as they scraped another last-gasp winner to keep the pressure up on us in second place. It seems he is the one who might come back to haunt us in terms of the promotion race, while Wigan languish down in the lower reaches of the division.
Was he close to a Wigan move? It seems he was, yes. Wigan’s sporting director, Grgeor Rioch, has revealed that not only did the Latics have a bid accepted for Erhahon, but he was also in the building, ready to sign.
How did he end up at Bolton? Rioch explained to Wigan Today.
“I knew there would be rival interest once we got a number out of Lincoln, because they were holding fire and trying to get more money,” he said.
“We ended up getting a deal done close to midnight, with the chief executive at Lincoln, finalising numbers, and he was booked in for a medical the following day. I then got a three-day exclusivity agreement on Ethan Erhahon – and I have it in writing – where Lincoln could not accept any other offer on the player for that period of time.
“I put that in because I knew, I had a feeling, that as soon as we got the number, other clubs would come in, because it was good value.”
That certainly seems to fit with the impression that £750,000, or a top fee in that range, was good value for a player once rated at well over £1m. Our number was, at one stage, £1.2m, but a perceived drop in form, plus rumblings of some discontent, contributed to a drop in the figure.
That prompted him to travel to Wigan, which is where the deal fell apart.
“He had his medical and then, travelling to the ground, I picked up his agent. But I’d already been tipped off that a couple of other clubs had come in and shown interest.
“When we got to the ground, the agent met with the player, and he asked to go into another room to discuss another option. And at that point, I knew he wasn’t for us.”
Seems fair. Wigan wanted commitment and at that stage, with another club in, I guess they thought they might not be such an attractive offer. They’re in the bottom half now, but many did expect them to be challenging for the top six, certainly ahead of us.
“He came out and said he would like to talk to another club, and I said that if he left the room now – and it was up to him – then the deal we were offering would no longer be on the table. As someone who looks after the greater good and betterment of this football club
“If someone isn’t prepared to commit to us, if they want to walk out of the room to talk to another club…if they don’t want to wear our badge with pride, they can go.”
He later penned the deal with Bolton, one of two clubs with seemingly serious aspirations of overhauling our six-point cushion at the top of the table, where he has just managed to become something close to a first-team regular.
Still, Rioch’s comments are an interesting insight into a transfer saga that we probably won’t ever know the full ins and outs of, officially.