Wanderers chasing Cardiff hit-man Kenwyne Jones

Trinidad and Tobago striker Kenwyne Jones is understood to be on Western Sydney Wanderers’ wanted list as coach Tony Popovic sets about rebuilding his strike force for next season.

Kenwyne Jones is apparently a target for the Wanderers (Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

With the attacking trident of Tomi Juric, Kerem Bulut and Nikita Rukavytsya all departing the Wanderers, Popovic - who knows all about Jones from his time in England as a player and then assistant coach at Crystal Palace - is believed to be keen to bring the 30-year-old Cardiff City forward to Pirtek Stadium.

Muscular and menacing, Jones has scored 88 goals in 343 games over the past 11 seasons in his spells with Southampton, Sheffield Wednesday (loan), Stoke City (twice), Sunderland, Cardiff City and AFC Bournemouth (loan).

Jones has a year remaining on a lucrative contract with the Bluebirds – who he joined from Stoke 18 months ago – having just returned from a loan spell with Bournemouth, where he scored once in six games off the bench as the Cherries won promotion to the promised land of the Premier League.

Cardiff, relegated from the top tier in 2013-2014, is desperate to reduce its wage bill with Jones reportedly the club’s top earner on $58,000 per week.

Even as an international marquee, he could not expect to earn anything close to that at Western Sydney but the club has signalled its interest and is hoping Jones’s sense of football adventure might outweigh purely financial considerations.

Before his January loan move to Bournemouth, which finished top of the Championship, Jones had netted 11 times in 34 appearances for Cardiff.

Capped 88 times by his country, Jones is known for being headstrong and was fined two weeks' wages at Stoke City in January last year after texting coach Mark Hughes to inform him he was 'unavailable' to play against Liverpool.

Stoke, which paid Sunderland $16 million for Jones in 2010, went on to lose the game 5-3 and he departed the Britannia Stadium in a swap deal with Peter Odemwingie two week later.

The World Game approached Jones’s UK agent for a comment on his future but received no reply.