Exclusive – Clegg: Wickham deal is very good business for Ipswich

Ipswich Town chief executive Simon Clegg has told talkSPORT the sale of Connor Wickham to Sunderland is a great deal for the Championship club.

Sunderland have paid Town an initial £8.1million, which could rise to £12million, to take the 18-year-old striker to Wearside.

And Clegg told Drive Time: “He’s a huge talent but this is a very good business deal for the football club. I’m absolutely delighted.

“He’s a very ambitious individual, a very mature individual and he wants to be playing Premier League football. We got to the situation where the tipping point was reached.

“We felt this was a really good deal for the club. We had to take into account what we could potentially do with that money to enhance our squad.

“There will be one or two individuals who will be sorry to see him go and think we should have held out for £15million or £20million or whatever figure they want to pull out of the sky but the bottom line is this is a really exciting deal for us. It has totally smashed our own transfer record.”

Wickham has been billed as a future England number nine and Clegg says it will be no surprise to see him go on and become a regular for the senior side.

"He has already had significant international experience, being part of the team which won the [Under-17s] European Championships last year," added Clegg. "He has played for England Under-17s, Under-19s and Under-21s as well.

"Stuart Pearce I know is a great fan of his, he has been down here on a number of occasions over the last couple of years watching him. Let’s see where he gets to in the future but we wish him well."