West Ham have been linked with a January move for Manchester City man Nathan Ake.

90min reports that the Dutchman has been identified as a potential target in the winter window as the Hammers seek cover for the injured Angelo Ogbonna, who could miss the remainder of the season with his ACL injury.

The Hammers have subsequently accepted that they may need to buy a centre-back in January and Ake is now reported to lead the list of targets.

The former Bournemouth man has somewhat struggled to make a proper impact at the Etihad Stadium since his move back in 2020 and has made a total of just 22 appearances for the club.

This season, Ake has played nine times in all competitions but he is behind both Ruben Dias and Aymeric Laporte in the pecking order.

The report claims that the Hammers will seek an initial loan deal for the centre-back, who has won 23 caps for the Netherlands, but it does remain to be seen if City will be willing to strengthen the Irons.

Newcastle are interested in a potential deal to sign Gaetan Laborde from Rennes in the January transfer window, according to a new report.

The Hammers have been linked with the striker previously, with Laborde seen as a potential acquisition to provide support to Mikey Antonio.

That was back in the summer but a new report now claims that the Magpies are eyeing up a swoop ahead of the winter window.

French outlet Homme du Match reports that the newly-minted Premier League club want to bring Laborde in, while Wolves are also credited with an interest.

Rennes paid around £15.3m to sign Laborde from Montpellier and Newcastle are said to be willing to double that price to secure his signature in the winter window.

It remains to be seen if the Hammers will also reignite their interest given that David Moyes wants to bring in a striker during the January transfer window.

Keep an eye on this.

Glenn Murray scored eight goals against West Ham with five of them coming as a Brighton player.

He always seemed to score against us which helped Brighton become a bogey club for West Ham and why we haven’t beaten them since they joined the Premier League in 2017.

His last came against us last year in February in a 3-3 draw at the London Stadium with a late equaliser which snubbed out the Hammers 3-2 lead.

Murray hung up his football boots and retried age 37 earlier this year so can’t inflict any more pain on us but we appear to have a replacement.

In December last year it was Neal Maupay who helped Brighton to a 2-2 draw with West Ham at the London Stadium and he did the same again with his fantastic overhead kick to make it 1-1 towards the end of yesterday’s game.

That’s two in two at the London Stadium for the Brighton man but hopefully he won’t become the new Murray.

When Tracey Crouch MP published her report on the “fan led” review of football she talked about the intention to offer greater protection for fans, giving veto powers to be held by a democratic legally constituted fan groups.

That is known as a Golden Share, which is a single share with rights that benefit the holder of  the share.

So, for this purpose, a ‘Golden Share’ is simply another is likely to give supporters veto rights to prevent the change of team name, team colours, move or sale of  current stadium.

The MP, in her report, envisages that football clubs will issue this ‘Golden Share to supporters’ groups. In many cases ( this will be the club’s existing supporters’ trust which will thereby become the effective custodian of the ‘Golden Share’ and the rights attached to it.

This is the main reason West Ham United Supporters’ Association converted into a trust earlier this week to become the West Ham United Supporters’ Trust.

They are  now offering £5 membership per year for individuals or £25 per year for West Ham United official and unofficial supporters groups in the UK and Overseas, supporters running websites, podcasts, and fanzines.

Those who join will receive one share and have the ability to vote within the Trust

You can join at https://www.whust.org/membership

It was very disappointing to hear boos ring out at the end of last night’s game at the London Stadium.

It is always hard to concede a late goal to miss out on a win but we must put things in perspective.

We have nine games in December and none are easy.

The suggestion that we would walk over Brighton last night despite never beating them in the Premier League was always a tough ask. They are our bogey team and to be fair to them they played well in the second half and deserved the point.

If West Ham had have held on to win the game it would have been an undeserved but welcomed result.

We live in democracy where people are allowed to express themselves freely but I am not sure what  booing off their own team and manager is expected to achieve!

West Ham supporters have come together to back this year’s annual Christmas Toy Appeal.

The Irons Supporting Foodbanks group has provided support to the campaign, donating new sports equipment, trainers, football boots and clothing by the score, thanks to links with the club’s kit sponsor Umbro.

The Kevin Jenkins OBE Newham Christmas Toy Appeal is run by Ambition, Aspire, Achieve (AAA) in conjunction with the Recorder and supported by Community Links.

John Ratomski, from Irons Supporting Foodbanks, said the group was thrilled to get behind this year’s appealand said: “Thanks to a generous donation from our friends at Umbro, we have got off to a flying start.

“We’re sure we’ll be supporting the appeal even more over the coming weeks. No one wants to see a needy child go without at Christmas.”

John handed over the goodies to Candy Buckler from AAA at the charity’s Terence Brown Arc In The Park in Canning Town.

To donate to Colin’s fundraiser, visit https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/colin-grainger-3?

The Toy appeal now in its 44th has been renamed after its founder Kevin Jenkins who was a big West Ham fan but sadly passed away earlier this year.

Stuart Pearce has dropped a Jesse Lingard hint, insisting that the attacking midfielder will be in demand in the summer.

The Manchester United playmaker’s contract is set to expire at the end of the season.

There have naturally been suggestions that the Hammers could go for him in January, but it seems certain that there will be a race to sign him in the summer on a free transfer.

Pearce believes that there will be a number of clubs chasing him, and has dropped something of a hint that the Hammers will be in the race.

Of course, Lingard enjoyed an incredibly productive loan spell at the London Stadium last season, leading to him earning a recall to the England team ahead of Euro 2020, although he did not make the cut for the final squad.

He has struggled since his return to United, though, and has yet to make a Premier League start.

Speaking on talkSPORT, Pearce said: “I think Jesse, from what he showed last year, will be linked with varying clubs and there’s no doubt about that.

“The frustrating thing for him is that he came to us, played really well and managed to get himself back into the England fold again. 

“He’s dropped out of it at the moment and dropped out of the England fold as well.

“From his point of view, I’m sure he will be looking at the World Cup in less than a year’s time and thinking what do I have to do and where do I have to play my football.

“All we know is he’s a United player at the moment, I think he’s out of contract next summer and I’m sure he’ll have one or two suitors.

“He did himself no harm coming to us when he did and the form he showed.”

West Ham are understood to be one of a number of Premier League clubs opposed with some of the recommendations made in the fan led review of football which was published last week by MP Tracey Crouch.

Premier League clubs will debate the 47 recommendations from the fan-led review into football this Friday;

Key recommendations of an independent regulator for football as well as a 10 per cent tax on Premier League transfer are opposed by Premier League clubs.

The Premier League’s position is that it is open in principle to an independent regulator as long as it operates within existing football structures.

The strength of feeling is very strong amongst clubs against a regulator and the 10 per cent tax.

Premier League owners and executives such as Christian Purslow and Steve Parrish are some of the names reportedly against.

So too is West Ham Vice-Chairman Karren Brady and former West Ham managing director Angus Kinnear now at Leeds who have since come out in opposition.

Anybody who disagrees that Manu Lanzini hasn’t earned the right to a starting place in the Hammers line-up for Chelsea on Saturday afternoon needs to look at the numbers supplied by the Argentine playmaker last night.

Indeed the go as close to bearing out the suggestion made here and elsewhere that were he to have started rather than Benrahma we may have had a comfortable winning performance.

Per Hammers News via Dan Woffenden the stats on Twitter show that in the relatively short time he was on the pitch he was probably the most effective Hammer on view.

And as a result there will be a lot of head scratching should David Moyes stick with the misfiring Benrahma for a match of crucial importance.

Wolfenden claims his game by numbers showed a  94.1% pass accuracy,  10 final third passes attempted 9 final third passes completed,  4 take-ons attempted 3 take-ons completed, 1 foul won .

Yesterday’s VAR decision over West Ham’s disallowed goal confused many supporters including the match officials it seems who first said they were checking for a possible foul then for a possible offside infringement.

The decision seemed to take forever indicating that even officials struggled . Maybe there should be a time limit on difficult decisions if the original decision should stand.

The first to take into account is the two player rule, where the keeper and an outfield player must be in front of an opposition player so Antonio was technically offside however as the ball was knocked onto Michail Antonio from a Brighton player it was thought that would make him onside.

VAR officials went back to when the ball was first touched by Craig Dawson so before the ball hits the Brighton player and at that particular point Antonio was judged to be offside using the two player rule.

There could be argument as to whether Antonio affected the movement of the ball when he brushed his shin, many supporters say no but match officials said yes hence the goal was ruled out.

Silly I know but the letter of the law.