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Hammers strongly linked to French striker

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West Ham are reportedly lining up a bid for Brentford striker Neal Maupay who last season scored 28 goals for the Championship club last season.

The club have been reported as being ready to offer the player a five year deal and big rise.

However, Aston Villa have are also understood to have made an approach for the player and that strong interest also exists from Sheffield United and Brighton.

Maupay was not involved for the Bees yesterday having been given him permission to return to his native France for three days due to him not being in the right frame of mind.

The player is also attracting interest from clubs in Spain, has an excellent track record in England since signing from St Etienne two years ago.

He scored 28 goals and supplied nine assists from 49 matches in all competitions last season, and has netted 41 times in 95 matches for the Bees.

ClaretandHugh says: Such is the detail involved in this story that it sounds possible the Hammers are indeed on Maupay’s case but we have our doubts. Given the type of striker we have been tracking it seems a long shot to imagine that Pellegrini would be ready to sanction £15m – £20m for a Championship player at a time when we are chasing the likes of Sebastien Haller. We will of course be checking it out with our own sources on the strength of the story. The 22 year old has emerged from under the radar of the Championship and it would not – IF TRUE – be the first time the Irons have been attracted to a Bees striker. They looked hard at Scott Hogan a couple of seasons back. Ironically, Aston Villa were again in the chase and finally landed the player. He would be a decent back up option but at around £20 million it is dubious whether the Irons would move in that direction.

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

6 comments

  • johnham1 says:

    I just saw that the insider has it on good source that Pelle is planning to play Fornals, Lanzini and Anderson as his 3 behind a main striker. I really hope this is not true as if anyone has done their homework on Fornals he is a link player in the same mould as Lanzini and the only way you can play them in the same team is when one plays in the middle with Rice. Neither player naturally wants to take a player on. Really really worrying times as I just don’t understand why we are not looking for a player in the same mould as Anderson to play on the opposite side with Fornals and Lanzini as a 10. I keep saying it we need a replacement for Arnie, a top CF and a top box to box midfielder if we are to remain in the top 10. Please don’t consider average players.

  • Dom says:

    If Hernandez leaves, he looks a fantastic option to play off a big man like Haller.

    None of my posts have been going through this past week using my other email. Hugh, I wonder if you can tell me if I’ve been banned for some reason? Wouldn’t have a clue why. I usually try to contribute to the debate and haven’t used any foul language.

    • No of course not. We have now stopped new registration cos it was producing some pretty obscene spam mate. You can now be neither registered on new e mail or banned on old 🙂 You can be moderated however although the level of debate is so pleasing now I may drop even that soon. You would all be very welcome in the FB group where there’s some great chat and banter

      • Dom says:

        Appreciate the offer but I stay away from social media for the sake of my sanity 🙂

        Don’t know what happened then. I’m not registered. I just post with my email but a week ago, it stopped posting. Just refreshed the page but my comment didn’t appear as ‘awaiting moderation’. I thought possibly my email address had been banned. It certainly won’t let me post with it. I’ll just use my other email and hope that one doesn’t stop working.

        Thanks for the reply.

  • johnham1 says:

    Hugh, I am completely confused at what our plans are – I hate to say it but I am totally unimpressed with who we are being linked to this striker. Assuming we get Haller we have other priority positions to fill with our money rather than spending big money on another striker. I get a little worried when people say Haller is a replacement for Arnie. We were always going to buy a striker with Arnie staying so assuming we sign a striker like Haller, our priority is to buy a quality player in the mould of Arnie and not buy another striker. The player I rate so highly is Tino Werner, he is in the Arnie mould. A player like this is of a higher priority. What a feeling it would be to buy another player like Anderson to play on the opposite side rather than buying a standard championship player (Arnie replacement for me). Wilshere and Yarmo are going to struggle to get back to their best. Another priority over a second striker is a powerful box to box midfielder – a player like Kessie or someone in that mould. We can buy another striker if we have the money but not until we replace Arnie and buy a top midfielder. Players like Hernandez, Antonio and Silva can fill in at 9. I am really worried we have messed up big time this summer. From the guys I watch the games with they are all thinking the same.I have never had any concerns over Pelle up to now. I fear we are messing up big time and we are not focusing on the key positions to fill.

  • Edward Soudan says:

    We hear this sort of Transfer rubbish every summer and January viz a viz Brentford players. Just ignore and you won’t be far off.

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