Manuel Lanzini is on holiday in Italy posting a photo on social media of him with his wife on a boat with an amazing background of Positano.

Yesterday a similar holiday snap by fellow Hammers teammate Felipe Anderson in Rome led to a report that the Brazilian was engineering a move back to Lazio. A suggestion quickly denied by club insider and Anderson’s brother Julian.

A quick look at the Italian map shows that Positano is close to Naples which home of Napoli so cue a report in the next few hours than Lanzini and representatives are speaking to Napoli with a view to a move.

Like all other Premier League players, Lanzini is enjoying three weeks holiday with his family and is due to report back to training at Rush Green on Monday 16th August for pre-season with the start of next season scheduled in for Saturday 12th September.

News that West Ham may be losing out in the battle to sign Eberechi Eze from Queens Park Rangers has brought a sharp response from a Hammers fan and Claretandhugh Facebook group follower simply named as Saul @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/363174467150521/

The reality is maybe that such a highly prized summer target can’t be as good as he is being claimed to be if Rangers are ready to take the first or second offer from the only club to offer a fee wiith around another eight weeks to go in the transfer window.

Here’s how Saul sees it

 What baffles me is why any young player who is being touted as a potential future England star would want to go to a Palace team that, without Zaha, are surely relegation candidates.

Certain people in the media tell us all who the manager wants, the sillier fans get all hyped up over a player they barely know anything about and then throw their toys out of the pram when we don’t sign that player.

Eze isn’t going to be our saviour, neither is Benrahma or Watkins or anyone else. Let’s just see who comes in and who goes out and look forward to supporting the team, whoever is in it.

The wages enjoyed by Felipe Anderson,  Manuel Lanzini and Andriy Yarmolenko are likely to prove a stumbling block for finding them a new club. The Hammers trio players are all reported to earn £100,000 per week or more and many other Foreign leagues will struggle to match those terms if any of them are to be sold.

The same is true of Jack Wilshere also reported to be enjoying £100,000 per week and forgotten man Winston Reid said to be picking up £70,000 per week.

According to a recent report by Sporting Intelligence the average wage of a Premier League player is now over £61,000 per week.

In Spain’s La Liga it drops down to £39,ooo per week while the Italian Series A league is £34,000 per week.

In the German Bundesliga, it is an average of £30,000 per week with the French Ligue 1 just £20,000 per week.

Other football leagues outside of these top five ae considerably less with the Turkish Super Liga around £15,500 per week

South American domestic leagues pay a fraction of their European rivals to all but their very best players.

New reports that Chelsea boss Frank Lampard is ready to sell N’Golo Kante along with eight  other players look set to raise further worries over Declan Rice’s future.

The Chelsea boss has already strengthened with two new arrivals – Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner – and now wants Bayer Leverkusen’s attacking midfielder Kai Havertz whom he may see as a replacement for another player reported to be on his outward list – Ross Barkley.

It’s always been known that Kante’s departure could be the trigger to prompt a Rice move and according to The Times he is among the nine players whom Lampard is ready to shed.

Kante experienced an injury hit season last term making just 23 appearances despite being a key part of the team when available.

However, Lampard has always made it clear he doesn’t have plans to let him go and declared back in June he wasn’;t going anywhere and that Chrlsea were a better team when he was available.

At the same time London Stadium sources told CandH several weeks ago that they were aware that any sale of Kante could prompt a move for the Hammers prize asset whilst insisting they have no plans whatsoever to sell him

Celtic boss Neil Lennon is making new moves to take Hammer Albian Ajeti to the club according to Sky Sports.

The Scottish club’ s offer of £5 million has been accepted by the Hammers but Ajeti remains in a quandary over whether this is the best move for him and has returned to Switzerland to think things over.

But in the meantime Lennon is reported to have got busy by entering into new discussions with the players representatives.

The problem may of course surround wages with the former Basel player almost certainly having to take a cut on PL salaries.

But being fair it may simply be that he is considering that maybe new offers may come in which he believed will advance his career better.

Whatever the problem it seems that Lennon may well be doing his best to solve it and has allegedly been in talks with the striker’s representatives.

The Celtic boss and former Leicester City player, who learned his trade under Martin O’Neill, is clearly unworried by the player’s disappointing form at the London Stadium and is hoping he can recharge him into the kind of performances he gave at Basel.

The deal will initially see him move on loan but with an option to make it permanent after a certain number of games which is understood to be very low.

David Moyes hopes of signing Eberechi Eze from QPR took a blow yesterday when Crystal Palace made a move submitting a formal bid of £12m plus add-ons.

The initial bid was rejected by the West London club but Palace will come back with a second bid and an offer of between £15m and £16m plus add-ons is likely to swing it.

Slaven Bilic is also said to be keen and both it has been reported that both he and David Moyes have separately spoken to Eze’s representatives in the last few weeks.

Palace are due to off load Wilfred Zaha this summer who they value at £50m.

West Ham are said to be nervous spending money they don’t currently have and hope the sale of players like Felipe Anderson and Manuel Lanzini will raise much-needed funds for David Moyes to bid for players like Eze but time is very much against them.

The market for Anderson and Lanzini is abroad and their massive six-figure weekly wages a stumbling block for many other leagues to afford.

With the exception of one offer from Celtic for Ajeti on loan, West Ham have not received any enquires or offers for any of their players to date.

Bookies make Palace the 4/5 odds on favourites to sign Eze with the Hammers second-favourites at 7/4.

Felipe Anderson’s brother Julian has confirmed that a story suggesting the Hammer was in Rome to talk to Lazio to engineer a return is completely untrue!

Julian posted on Instagram ‘Is not true’ in response to the FI report adding ‘Always Iron’ and ‘COYI’

An earlier report by Football Insider suggested Hammer Felipe Anderson has flown to Italy to engineer a move back to Lazio.

The report seemed to be published in response to a photo published by the Brazilian midfielder on holiday in Rome with the famous Coliseum in the background.

Premier League players are on holiday at the moment enjoying their three weeks contracted break.

Players are due to report back for pre-season training on Monday 16th August giving the manager less than four weeks before the new Premier League season starts again on Saturday 12th September. Anderson spent five years in Italy when he moved to Lazio in 2013 from Brazilian club Santos.

The report claims Anderson’s representatives are holding preliminary discussions with Lazio chiefs over a potential move this summer but that speculation appears to be built largely on his holiday snap.

Earlier today a senior club insider confirmed Anderson is just on holiday.

Episode one of season ten of the popular West Ham podcast Moore Than Just A Podcast is now available to listen online or download.  Join Claret and Hugh Associate editor Sean Whetstone with fellow podcast presenter Nigel Kahn and guest presenter Canning Town Len. The podcast crew discuss the latest West Ham transfer news both inbound and outbound.

The team also discuss the leaked third kit, season ticket renewals and the financial crisis as well as a number of other West Ham news stories covered on Claret and Hugh for the past seven days.

Download or listen online at https://play.acast.com/s/moorethanjustapodcast/

This two-hour and twenty-minute podcast episode was recorded on  Monday evening of the 3rd August. It is available on all popular platforms to listen online or download including Acast, TunedIn, Player.FM and ITunes

Now also on Spotify too at MOORETHANJUSTAPODCAST

Join the discussion on the MTJAP Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/moorethanjustapodcast/