The risk of ignoring West Ham’s name cropping up in yet another report of ‘interest in bringing a striker to London Stadium’ is that nobody wants to miss ‘the one’ that turns out to be real. So, bear with us as we check and report these stories from around Europe concerning attacking players linked with a West Ham move.
Latest one is Noah Okafor – an interesting case as he’d said good bye to AC Milan fans, packed his bags and left on-loan for RB Leipzig only to fail his medical on the grounds that he couldn’t start to play immediately – and was returned to Milan.
Where he is not wanted any more and ‘runs the risk of being frozen out of the Milan squad‘ according to football-italia.net.
Hence, the report in Italian gazzettadelsport (kindly translated by sportwitness.co.uk!) confirming ‘West Ham and Bournemouth in for Noah Okafor’.
The deal negotiated with Leipzig was a €2 million loan deal and €26 million option to buy. Ironically this now failed deal could well have been negotiated to cover Leipzig’s own player André Silva who’s been linked with a West Ham move!
That profile of loan fee and option to purchase would suit West Ham financially too just now, and offer a much needed incoming pacy player to bolster their front line.
As was seen from the Crystal Palace team set up, West Ham are completely devoid of attacking options so – a loan signing such as this would at least allow Graham Potter to select a team that possesses some kind of attacking threat.
A Swiss international, Okafor at 24 is a good age profile and can play as a left winger or central striker. 550 minutes on the pitch from 16 games so far this season would suggest he’s pretty much upto speed although I’m not aware of the exact ‘short term’ medical issue. We’ll see what more we can find out about the validity of this ‘report’.
