Koln will play in the Europa League next season, hindering Southampton, Stoke, West Brom and West Ham’s plans of signing Anthony Modeste.
Anthony Modeste
There were massive scenes of celebration at Koln at the weekend as they beat Mainz to finish fifth in the Bundesliga and ensure European football at the club for the first time in 25 years.
Unfortunately for a handful of Premier League sides this could spell bad news in their pursuit of the German outfit’s top-scorer, Anthony Modeste.
The Stoke Sentinel reported in May that Southampton, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion and West Ham United sent scouts to watch Modeste in action against Werder Bremen.
The striker certainly would have impressed that night, scoring twice to take his league tally to 25 goals and 45 in 73 appearances since joining Koln from Hoffenheim in the summer of 2015.
Anthony Modeste shoots
Yet as fans flooded the pitch at the RheinEnergieStadion and lifted Modeste aloft, the English quartet must have felt any chances of signing the 29-year-old were slipping through their fingers.
They cannot offer the striker Europa League football in 2017/18 and unless a significantly higher wage packet was put on the table, it seems difficult to see why the Frenchman would leave Koln.
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