Speculation that Mario Balotelli will become a Manuel Pellegrini target in the January window seems pretty wide of the mark.
The former Liverpool and Manchester City striker is being discussed as a potential replacement up front for either Marko Arnautovic or Javier Hernandez.
The story has arisen from French outlet L’Equipe and follows summer rumours that we were interested…when we weren’t!
Now it seems the story is being recycled on a slow news day when in reality there is little in it apart from the fact that Balotelli once played for City and Pellegrini is a former manager- barely at the same time!
The L’Equipe story claims that the Hammers boss is looking for an additional striker to add to the squad before the end of the season and appears to overlook that Andy Carroll will have returned (hopefully) for the last part of the campaign.
A Hammers insider explained: “We haven’t even thought about January. If we need to nearer the time we will but the Balotelli thing has been doing the rounds for a while.”