West Ham are stong second favourites to sign Liverpool misfit Christian Benteke this summer.
The Hammers have long been interested in the former Aston Villa target man but the prohibitive transfer fee of £31 million and wages in excess of £100k a week had thought to have stimied the deal.
However, Sky Bet have hm chalked up at 5/2 to become an Iron with Palace still favourites at 8/15.
Everton are third favourites at a distant 12/1, presumably on the basis that he could become the replacmemt for Roman Lukaku who is attracting interest across the globe.
The Hammers though are way out of the betting as far as Alexandre Lacazetee is concerned despite his future being far from settled.
Arsenal are 2/1 favourites with the Hammers right back on 25/1 to make him a shock signing.
not sure how many would agree but if we were to take a punt on a Liverpool striker I would prefer it to be Ballotelli than Benteke, for all of the down sides Balotelli is genuine world class and he can make a huge difference in games, it would be a huge gamble but it is possible Slav could get the best out of him.
You said exactly what i was thinking. If we could get balotelli to get his head down , one good season with us would turn him back into a 20m striker ….lots of ifs and buts
Yep Aykay we wanted a marquee signing and the only world class forward we might get imho is SuperMario although now I think of it didn’t Kouyate Nick his girlfriend ?
I wonder if the lesson has been learned from this transfer window, that we have to stop chasing top European players, who are only interested in the answer to one question. “Do I get CL football”.
Without that we have nothing to offer them except money and they all have that already.
We need to accept that this going to be a one step at a time process and we do that by going after quality players who’s career is running down but still have the ability to find the net consistently with the right service, which can supply in ‘spades’
Getting into CL position is not going to be easy. We won’t get another year like the one we just had, so we have to find a way past a formidable group and until we do that we won’t get those top Europeans to take us seriously
If Balotelli is happy and settled, he can be nearly unstoppable in his striking duties. When he is on song, he is one of the best going around. I wonder if Ogbonna’s presence would be helpful in making him feel at home?
i hope we dont sign this flop benteke we could sign gomez and then sign a good defensive midfielder