Nottingham Forest tried, and failed with a bid for West Ham’s top midfield target Arne Engels in August of last year. The Tricky trees’ bid of £25 million was knocked back and the Belgian stayed in Scotland for another season.
Fast forward and West Ham have now had two plus bids knocked back as they try to take Engels to east London ahead of the start of the Championship season. As negotiations go public the Hammers risk the very real threat of Forest returning again to tempt the talented 22 year old to the Premier League rather than a sideways one to London.
West Ham have already overcome the hurdle of convincing Engels to move to the Championship, by all accounts. And now the price has been made public, it’s pretty much put up or shut up time.
The Scottish Champions have by all accounts, made it clear where the goal posts lie.
According to SkySports:
“According to Sky Sports reporter Anthony Joseph, the Scottish giants are holding out for a package worth around £25 million, which is funnily enough Forest’s final offer from January, before considering any deal for Engels” (Footballfancast.com)
So West Ham’s team of negotiators have a very stark choice. Pay up or play the game and risk losing the player. If Nuno has decided that he is their man – and claims that West Ham are negotiating in a different fashion this year rather than the scattergun approach favoured by Sullivan – suggest that the club chooses one target and then sees negotiations through or walks away before considering other players.
£25 million then. Time to pay up or walk away.
No mention of amount whu have offered just not enough.
Is it a Sullivan type offer which mostly lead to ‘We tried’.
Perhaps €25m would get job done.
Understandably all clubs are going to be looking at what whu got for Fernandes and Summerville.
This needs to be followed up with signing Sorba Thomas and tall/pacy goal scoring striker.
We’ve got to remember that we are a championship club now so when a player has a choice between us and a Premier club we know which one he’s probably going to choose?
Walk away far to much money for him he aint that good let forest have him
We have heard the noise about intending to “bounce back” to the PL, so here is a test, PL or BS. Apart from sending a message of real intent and ambition to every player looking for a future in the PL, West Ham can recoup the cost of players like this in the first year back. If the player is good enough, cough up and move on to the next or make the alternative statement that West Ham have no such ambition and are OK being second rate and anonymous. Which is it?
They have more chance of playing Karen Brady in midfield, or am I getting mixed up with Liam Brady?? Either way, they will not blag Martin O’Neil into selling any bright star on the cheap!!
Let’s pay up
Why do we think it’s ok to take the line of this is the price we want either match it or walk away but when we are buying expect to continually low ball. We got relegated with that sort of attitude to the championship by missing out on players galore because we wouldn’t pay the price but were happy to pay silly money at times for players nobody else either wanted or were willing to pay for. Now we seem to be trying to buy with the attitude of a hard up League One side despite having just copped almost £150 million for 2 players
Martin O Neill shared earlier we were way off Celtics valuation so it seems we are trying to do things on the cheap or Celtic have an unrealistic valuation. would be good to know what the bid and valuation are if you can find that out ?
The valuation is £25M