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No need for City to sell ‘prize jewel’ Wells

Photos Gary ChadwickBradford City striker Nahki Wells

Bradford City have warned Championship vultures that it will take silly money to land Nahki Wells and his strike partner James Hanson.Wells, 23, has been attracted the interest of several Championship clubs including Burnley, Huddersfield and Leeds.The club’s joint-chairman Mark Lawn insists that City’s new-found financial stability having gained promotion to League One and reach the Capital One Cup final last season puts them in a strong position to resist any bids.“They are prize jewels and we wouldn’t want to lose them,” Lawn told the Bradford Telegraph & Argus.“Financially we don’t need to sell. We’ve got them on contracts that we can afford so it’s not going to kill us to keep them here.“If we get a stupid offer, then don’t get me wrong we’d certainly have to look at it. But it would have to be one where Phil (Parkinson) is happy to turn round and say ‘I can replace him’.“If we were to let either one of them go, we’d have to get enough money to be able to replace them. That’s up to Phil, not me, and he would have to tell me what he wants.“But everyone knows our position. That’s why all the usual tyre kickers haven’t bothered coming along because they know we’d give them short shrift.”Lawn revealed Wells could have been sold if the last campaign hadn’t been such a success.He added: “Nahki was in our mind when we took the risk (with the budget) last year. If it hadn’t worked out by January, then we would look to move him on.“But to be fair, it did go so well so we didn’t have to do that.“Nahki’s tied down for two years after this and James has still got one more. We’ll be talking to him at some stage but there’s no rush.“They are both level-headed about it. They realise that Phil has developed them and can see they’ve come on a lot.“We’ve managed to keep the team together and I get the impression from both Nahki and James that they want to come in next year and improve even more under this coaching staff.”