How much West Ham United will be able to invest in new signings this summer depends largely on how much the Premier League outfit can bring in via the sale of many unwanted players.
Genoa seem keen to keep Maxwel Cornet despite the former Burnley winger’s injury-interrupted stay in Italy.
Forgotten man Luizao could return to Brazil as part of the deal which sees long-time West Ham United target Yuri Alberto finally make the switch to the London Stadium from Corinthians.
Danny Ings, Vladimir Coufal, Aaron Cresswell and Lukasz Fabianski will depart when their contracts expire at the beginning of July, meanwhile. This, plus the potential exits of Michail Antonio and Tomas Soucek, will free up plenty of space on Graham Potter’s wage bill.
But, on the downside, any hope West Ham had of flogging Nayef Aguerd to Real Sociedad appears to have gone up in smoke as new and very unwelcome developments arise from Spain.
West Ham won’t sell Nayef Aguerd to Real Sociedad this summer
Just three weeks ago, Real Sociedad president Jokin Aperribay kept the door ajar for Aguerd to become a permanent member of Imanol Alguacil’s squad.
But after the Morocco international suffered another injury following early-May’s Basque derby stalemate with Athletic Club, Aguerd’s hopes of securing a full-time contract at San Sebastian appear to have come to an abrupt end.
Mundo Deportivo say that the West Ham loanee, unavailable for Saturday’s final day clash with La Liga runners-up Real Madrid, has already played his last game in the blue and white kit.
“Aguerd has already played his last match as a ‘txuri urdin’, which was the derby at Anoeta,” they write. “[He] will not be able to say goodbye to his current club on the pitch.”
Aguerd, then, is destined to have featured just once in Real Sociedad’s final 11 matches of the Spanish league season.
Graham Potter would love to see Aguerd return to the Premier League
Football correspondent Graeme Bailey exclusively told Hammers News in April that Graham Potter would welcome Nayef Aguerd back to West Ham with open arms.
That enthusiasm is not something shared by the player himself, though the £30 million signing from Rennes may now consider softening his stance as another untimely injury makes up Real Sociedad minds.
“Potter would love to bring him back as he thinks he could fit,” Bailey explains. “But the player does not want to come back to England.
“The lad just doesn’t want to be in England, nothing to do with [his feelings towards] Potter.”
West Ham have conceded far fewer than the 74 goals they let in last term under David Moyes. However, with a tally of 61 in the ‘Goals Against’ column, this has still been another year in which the Hammers have been far too easily breached at the back.
In the meantime, West Ham remain hopeful of signing Burnley’s CJ Egan-Riley.
Ambitious Ligue 1 outfit Strasbourg – controlled by the same BlueCo group who own Premier League giants Chelsea – are hoping to use their connections to lure ex-Manchester City starlet Egan-Riley across the Channel however.
