West Ham have been linked with Sunderland defender Lamine Kone. A report in the Daily Mirror by John Richardson claims Hammers chiefs are lining up a January move for the Ivory Coast star who will cost around £ 15m.
The article says Kone has been on Bilic’s wanted list for some time and the Croatian will sanction a move even though the centre-half could be at the Africa Cup of Nations early in the new year for up to a month.
With the approach of the African Cup of Nations next January, West Ham could be without four key players for three crucial weeks next winter. Both Senegal and Ghana have qualified for the African Cup finals meaning Cheikhou Kouyaté, Diafra Sakho, Andre Ayew and Sofiane Feghouli could all play if fit.
The tournament will be hosted in Gabon between 14th January – 5th February 2017 meaning all four could miss league games against Palace, Middlesborough, Manchester City and Southampton.
This position is surely not our priority and is he better than what we have?!
He is an upgrade if we are going to play a flat back 4 he is the right sided CB, he had a patchy start to the season but is starting to come back into form again, he will be off to the Africa cup of Nations though so would hold off until the end of the season on him also I can’t see Sunderland letting him go while they need him to stay in the PL… As you say George that isn’t the priority we need a proper RB and a CF that will get us the goals, maybe we should try and get Martial from Man U, we can let them know just before the game we want to sign him in response to their Payet bid press releases 😉