{"id":318224,"date":"2025-08-04T22:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T22:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318224\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T22:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T22:12:11","slug":"ipswich-town-closing-in-on-chuba-akpom-and-jens-cajuste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318224\/","title":{"rendered":"Ipswich Town closing in on Chuba Akpom and Jens Cajuste"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Ajax striker Akpom had been due for a medical at Birmingham City this afternoon,\u00a0but Ipswich showed late interest<\/a> and the 29-year-old is understood to have now chosen Portman Road as his destination.\n<\/p>\n

\n The former England U21 international – who was named Championship Golden Boot winner for 2022\/23 after scoring 28 goals for Middlesbrough – is set to provide competition to George Hirst, who was recently handed the No.9 shirt, as well as being an option for the No.10 role.\n<\/p>\n

\n His decision adds further spice to Friday night’s Championship 25\/26 opener between newly-promoted Birmingham and freshly-relegated Ipswich at St Andrew’s, two clubs who are among the early promotion favourites.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n It’s been reported that Birmingham had committed to signing Akpom permanently for \u00a37m if they were to secure promotion to the Premier League, a clause that Ipswich are likely to have matched.\n<\/p>\n

\n It remains to be seen if Akpom’s arrival will see Ipswich sign-off the \u00a37.5m\u00a0sale of Nathan Broadhead to Championship rivals Wrexham<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n Kieran McKenna will want plenty of attacking strength in depth. Omari Hutchinson’s future remains very much uncertain<\/a>\u00a0following rejected bids from Brentford, Jaden Philogene suffered an ankle injury<\/a> in last weekend’s final warm-up game, while Wes Burns isn’t due to return to action until October.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cajuste spent last season on loan at Ipswich, starting 25 Premier League games. McKenna said he would love to re-sign the classy midfielder, but admitted ‘there’s probably a lot to do for that to happen’.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n The Swedish international now looks set to return to Suffolk after another loan deal with the potential to buy was thrashed out with\u00a0Napoli. Town stepped up their pursuit after recently failing to persuade Middlesbrough’s Hayden Hackney to join them<\/a> for a Championship record fee of \u00a315m + add-ons.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cajuste, 25, had to manage a knee issue throughout the entirety of 2024\/25 and will still need to pass a medical.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Blues’ current midfield unit is made up of just three players – new \u00a37.8m signing Azor Matusiwa, Jack Taylor and Cameron Humphreys, the latter having spent last season on loan at League One club Wycombe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ajax striker Akpom had been due for a medical at Birmingham City this afternoon,\u00a0but Ipswich showed late interest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-318224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114972796059320050","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}