By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
West Ham are facing a race against the clock to get Arne Engels signed and registered in time for Sunday’s Championship opener against Burnley, with the Celtic midfielder due to undergo his Hammers medical today.
Sky Sports News News report that the 22-year-old is travelling down for his medical after West Ham agreed a £22 million deal with Celtic last night.
If the club can get the deal signed, sealed and registered in time, Engels would be eligible for selection at Turf Moor. That said, it would be highly unlikely that the Belgian midfielder would have participated in much, if any, training under Nuno Espírito Santo.
As Claret & Hugh reported last night, things massively accelerated when ExWHUEmployee revealed that West Ham had finally had a £22 million bid accepted by the Glasgow giants.
Celtic transfer activity unlocks Engels deal
The breakthrough comes after a significant increase in Celtic’s own transfer activity.
The Scottish champions have announced the signing of Egyptian international winger Haissem Hassan from Real Oviedo on a four-year deal.
More importantly from a West Ham perspective, Sky Sports Germany’s Florian Plettenberg revealed on Wednesday that Celtic had reached an agreement with SC Paderborn to sign 22-year-old midfielder Mika Baur.
As we reported at the time, Celtic’s move for Baur looked capable of unlocking West Ham’s pursuit of Engels.
And so it appears to have proved.
Engles will have his West Ham medical today
West Ham now need to get Engels registered
The heightened transfer activity has clearly helped persuade Celtic to sanction the exit of Engels, who has been Nils Koppen’s number one midfield target throughout much of the summer.
The attention now turns to whether West Ham can complete all the necessary paperwork quickly enough to make him available for Burnley.
Even if he does make the deadline, I’d be surprised to see him thrown straight into Nuno’s starting XI.
But first things first.
Get the medical completed, get the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, and finally get Koppen’s number one midfield target through the door.
I am always frustrated when clubs talk about completing the paperwork in time. These people complete similar paperwork a few times each season, surely they could have 99% of it ready prior to signing?
I was getting extremely frustrated as we’re many others but the process for recruiting has changed,the scattergun approach and cheapskate bids seems to have stopped….I wonder why
Great news we need all the help and support we can get.
Just hope we manage to keep hold of Taty,he just seems to score goals for fun.
Seen him play a couple of times for the Bhoys, he does have an idea for a forward pass which we desperately need, can be a bit Paqueta ish in that quite often nobody else seems to read where its going.
Like many I have been hugely frustrated by the slow progress in rebuilding the squad, but if we can this one done then I can’t grumble about the quality we’ve got in without breaking the bank. Please don’t stop here though, Parrot is another must buy and a few others will be required.
Happy with this signing as watching him play for the Hoops he does have a bit about him, let’s see if he can step up in the Championship and hopefully the PL next season, with us