David Moyes and the club have made a concrete move for Amando Broja by launching a £25 million bid for the Chelsea striker.
The news come from the Guardian’s Jacob Steinberg who is well connected with both the Hammers and Stamford Bridge boardrooms.
However, Thomas Tuchel appears to be firm that the player is going nowhere telling reporters during the club’s American tour:
He said: “Armando is our player first of all and we have, at the moment, no interest in selling him. He is here to make an impression after he was on loan in Southampton.
“That’s his situation from where we look up front. It’s good if there’s interest as it shows us there’s talent and potential. It shows us that he is in the position to impress and become a Chelsea player.
“When will he become a Chelsea player? No one knows but hopefully as soon as possible. He got injured and there’s a delay for him which is never nice because a young player should normally make an impression from the first minute in pre-season. Now we have a bit of a delay in that but that’s the situation.
Steinberg reports, meanwhile, that the Hammers are now at the point where they have to know for certain whether the Blues want to keep the 20 year old who has been on the Moyes wish list for several weeks.
The bid would include £5 million of add ons which would take it up to the £30 million Chelsea are understood to want for the 20 year old.
Chelsea have several options up front and Broja – like Zouma before him – looks very much the main option after it became clear – as revealed by CandH – that Moyes may have cooled on Sassuolo striker Gianluca Scamacca.
The Blues remained reluctant to sell the central defender until the end of the winter window before accepting a £30 million bid.
Hope Moyes isn’t doing his dithering again get in scamm and onana ASP forget lingard and broja if tuch has said his not selling him. How many times we miss out on players through dithering Dave probably the worst person to be in charge of transfers . Let Newman and Warburton do the transfers and dithering Dave do the coaching of players only which is what his good at. No means no so tell lingard and any others who don’t want to come here first time of asking to jog on and move on yourself .
As Chelsea still retains a business model that needs to be financed and fed out of necessity, they may be tickling us for a higher fee.
Hopefully, this is part of the early salvos during negotiation, because at this stage it seems certain that we have identified our perfect striker.
This, like many of our (and other clubs by the look of it), has been a long drawn-out process, but once a manager has identified his target, it’s not like the exact type of player is out there and available.
I guess that it’s a bit like skipping or replacing a few essential ingredients when making a cake.
Listen if we can get scamacca we should do it , are we that stupid fo hang on for Borja when it’s more likely they keep him. Not all transfers are the same so you can’t use Zouma as an example . We would be stuffed if they say no and we would probably loose the chance to sign Scamacca. Let’s not be stupid !
And frankly, Scamacca’s the better player. His goal return is superior, and scoring consistently in Serie A speaks to some degree of quality. Borja had a half season at best before he dropped off. Plus I don’t believe tuchel wants to sell to a potential rival. All in all, Scamacca seems the best move.