Nuno’s move for ‘natural leader’ would be massive fitness gamble | West Ham News

On the face of it, Nuno’s interest in bringing in a new centre back with Championship experience to West Ham this summer makes a lot of sense. Axel Disasi has departed and is unlikely to choose to step down a league after impressing so many last season, despite the Hammers’ obvious desire to bring him back.

Accordingly West Ham currently have solely Mavropanos and Max Kilman to call on- the pairing that hardly covered themselves in glory in the first part of last season, assuming Jean Clair Todibo has his way and gets spirited away from Nuno’s squad forthwith.

So the links with Leicester City’s Harry Souttar, fresh from four solid games with Australia in the World Cup, are understandable.

However, as covered by yahoosports.com yesterday, Souttar has a fitness record to furrow the brow of any Recruitment Director:

“In November 2021, Souttar tore his ACL whilst playing for Australia, and that would sideline him for the best part of a year.

Then after rupturing his Achilles in a Boxing Day 2024 match for Sheffield United, just a matter of weeks after having surgery he would slip on his crutch and rupture it again, requiring him to have yet another surgery.”

In fact after just two games at the back end of last season, he headed for the World Cup and performed admirably for the Socceroos.

After so much soap-opera style drama with Niclas Fullkrug’s high-mileage body, it’d be a very brave Nils Koppen that commits the reported £10 million for this 27 year old ‘natural leader’ as a front line Hammers defender.

A 46-game Championship season, plus cup games, lies just around the corner and Soutter is an untested entity: With his fitness record, that’s a huge £10 million gamble.