Antwerp: We Will Do All We Can to Keep Mbokani

Title-chasing Royal Antwerp want key striker DR Congo’s Dieumerci Mbokani to stay put.

Dismissed as cast off at the start of the league and an expensive gamble, Mbokani has proven his doubters wrong and is today the most in-demand African in the European transfer market.

His fourteen goals and assists speak of a forward on a terrific form all clubs would want in their cheque books.

Predictably, Royal Antwerp’s sports director Sven Jacques wants the African stay put and is ready to move heaven and earth to see this setout objective attained even in the face of a blizzard of overtures abroad.

An array of teams from Turkey’s Super Lig have come sniffing and it would make perfect sense for the Belgian giants to fetch over €3m from an ageing 34-year-old and whose services they didn’t even part with money to secure.

However, Antwerp remain unshakable in their resolute not-for-sale stance, in the words of  Jacques whose board are mulling having the DR Congo man on revised terms to avoid losing him on a free transfer in June this year.

“We will do everything we can to see Dieu here next season. Hopefully, we will succeed. Dieu has gained maturity and age, he will not run away for the first best. He proved that last year,” Sven said hours ago.

Earlier this season, the erstwhile Monaco and Norwich City man turned his back on an audacious proposal from a club in Uzbekistan preferring a move to cash-loaded China’s Super League.