Coventry City have slapped a £15 million price tag on John Hartson in a desperate attempt to keep the wolves from door.

The Sky Blues, relegated after 34 years in the top flight, thought they had sewn up their key personnel to make the big push for promotion from Division One next season.

But already the big clubs are circling around Hartson, who scored 8 goals in 9 matches for club and country when Coventry signed him on a pay-as-you-play deal from Wimbledon.

If Coventry had signed him earlier, his goals could have kept them in the lucrative Premier League, but now Leicester City, Middlesbrough and Celtic have targeted the Welshman.

Coventry’s chairman Bryan Richardson confirmed:

“We have had initial inquiries from a number of clubs and we have told them all to forget it.

“We see him as a key figure to get us back to the Premiership so any club would have to guarantee us promotion – in other words around £15 million. That’s the situation in a nutshell.”

But after pledging he would stay at Coventry, Hartson said:

“They have been good to me, but I am under the impression I could negotiate with a bigger club providing Coventry were kept informed.”

The player is currently on duty with Wales for the World Cup qualifying matches against Poland and Ukraine, when his performances will be closely monitored by interested managers.

Coventry, meanwhile have been linked with Newcastle United’s international trio of Kevin Gallacher, Rob Lee and Stephen Glass.

Gallacher won the first of his 50 Scotland caps in his two years as a Coventry player, before he left for Blackburn Rovers and then Newcastle.

Lee, like Gallacher, aged 35 and in the later stages of his career, holds 21 England caps in midfield, while Glass, ten years their junior, has played once for Scotland at senior level.

Stephen McPhee, the young Scottish winger for whom great things were expected at Coventry, is now believed to be on the move to Hearts or Port Vale.

The winger, who was signed from the Dutch club Arnhem, could not break into Coventry’s first team squad and he was loaned to St Mirren for two months last season, where he attracted attention after being named Scotland Young Player of the Month.