This could be the most important transfer window West Ham United have had in a long time.
The Hammers are still waiting for the Declan Rice transfer to Arsenal to be signed off, some nine days after it was agreed.
Once that’s done and dusted, the east Londoners can get to work on any deals that they have in the pipeline but haven’t been able to execute because of the continued delay with the Gunners.
With only four weeks to go until the start of the new Premier League season, David Moyes and David Sullivan are going to have to work efficiently in order to get the stars in through the doors at the London Stadium in time to get them bedded in and used to their team-mates.
To that end, it’s been noted that they are still in talks with £90k p/w (per Capology) Chelsea flop, Denis Zakaria, currently back with parent club Juventus.
“The one that they (West Ham) are continuing talks with is Denis Zakaria. The Juventus midfielder was on loan at Chelsea last season,” Sky Sports presenter, Dharmesh Sheth, told Give Me Sport.
“It might have worked in West Ham’s favour with regard to the fee because of how he performed at Chelsea last season. That’s nothing against Zakaria because he was going into a club which was a bit of a mess, really.
“I don’t know how many players you can pick out from the Chelsea squad from last season and say, ‘my goodness, they had a fantastic season’.
“Maybe he was just one of those players that got sucked into that kind of malaise that happened at Chelsea last season.”
If the east Londoners can agree on a payment structure with Juve, then there’s every chance that the deal will go through, however, with time against them, Messrs. Moyes and Sullivan don’t want to mess about.
A deadline has to be placed on getting this deal over the line and if it doesn’t happen, move on.
The worst thing the board and manager could do at this stage is waste their expected windfall because it’s likely that the fans would never forgive them for sabotaging such an opportunity.
Zakaria is an 8 million squad player at best with Juve trying to dump him for a profit at Westham’sj expense . As usual the inferior leagues are trying to push their Sponge Bob Square Pants type players at severely over priced rates . The huge amount of money that flows through the Premier League effectively keeps these lesser league teams afloat and so I don’t blame them for trying , but Westham must not overpay and risk FFP violations .