By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
Roma had been quietly building their case for Crysencio Summerville long before Manchester United joined the chase earlier today, with sportwitness.co.uk reporting that Donyell Malen is doing his best to talk our winger into a move to the Stadio Olimpico.
Italian outlet Corriere dello Sport described it neatly as “Malen’s persuasion on one side, discussions at the highest levels” on the other.
As far as our tricky Dutch winger is concerned… the cat is out of the bag I’m afraid.
Summerville’s brilliant goal against Japan put him in front of a global audience and the chances of keeping him at the London Stadium are now somewhere between slim and zilch.
Roma Were First, United Are Only Catching Up
The Roma link is not a new development.
Gian Piero Gasperini has been mapping out an attacking line for weeks that would pair Summerville with Malen, Mason Greenwood, Paulo Dybala, Lorenzo Pellegrini and Matías Soulé.
Roma reportedly opened with a £25 million offer against a West Ham asking price of said to be £50m if this mornings reports from Manchester United are accurate.
Malen Is Doing The Job We Cannot Stop
The tapping-up element is what makes this so difficult to defend against although the Serie A club will have their work cut out with interest from Old Trafford.
Malen is Roma’s recently confirmed permanent signing from Aston Villa and our winger’s Netherlands teammate at the World Cup.
He is the man on the inside telling Summerville how good things could be at the Olimpico together.
Summerville has supposedly already made it clear he will not be playing in the Championship, but honestly, he seems to be keeping his head down and concentrating on the WC.
His contract runs until 2029 with an optional further year, which at least gives the hammers some security.
What The Hammers Can Realistically Hope For
I think the honest answer is, not much.
Best case scenario, the World Cup keeps doing exactly what it has done so far, with Summerville’s performances continuing to push his value higher and pulling the eventual fee closer to a sensible reflection of his level.
If Roma, United and PSG are all genuinely in, a bidding war serves us a great deal better than a quiet sale.
Make no mistake, Summerville will be sold this summer, and probably sooner rather than later.
At the moment, our chances of keeping him are zero.
Are we bothered? He may go onto to do great things but his inconsistency was one of the reasons we got relegated. He was so frustrating, he had the skill, speed, ability and was mobile and committed. But no end product.
One short flash of goals and assists before he got injured again early this year was his entire contribution in two seasons.
I don’t think he’ll be missed and if we get more than we paid that’s good enough.
You never know as a member of a team that were absolutely miserable for about 30 out of 38 games last year
He might put money on the back-burner and decide to help us out of the hole he helped get us into …… but then again!!
It’s a shame particularly as DK says we have no need to sell ! However from a business perspective if we gear 50 miiion it’s a no brained . It would give funds to get a young hungry talented player . Would like him to stay but as you say , unlikely . I think Fernandez is off too , same thing get a really good price and invest in what we need to get promotion first time .
He’s too good to plain in the Championship, but if we genuinely do not need to sell players to raise funds, why not loan him out for the season at a reasonable fee, potentially to a club like Roma, and then if we can gain promotion back at the first time of asking, he’s back in the Premier League and we have a player we don’t want to lose. Win/Win. He’ll still have value to sell the following year if we did not get promoted
You never know as a member of a team that were absolutely miserable for about 30 out of 38 games last year
He might put money on the back-burner and decide to help us out of the hole he helped get us into …… but then again!!
Summerville will be a miss but he has been rather injury prone not helped of course by the number of times he is fouled. Personally I think he would do even better outside the PL where physicality is less obvious trait of the game.
Dudley absolutely agree. There is no finer site in football than watching a player dribbling and beating people. Alas Summerville is too lightweight to succeed in the premier league where defenders are thugs. I always thought he might have a good World Cup where the officials are much stronger. If so we might get £50m for him
Ted, he wasn’t “too lightweight” the last time he played in the Championship…… 21 goals and 10 assists in his last season with Leeds.
Agree with Dave, apart from a few games in the middle of the season where he was very good and great to watch, the rest has been mediocre even when you take into account his injuries. If we can get anywhere near £50m I’d snatch their hand off.
No player is bigger than the club.
If the fee reflects true market valuation then alls well that ends well.
These players do make you laugh.
he’s played about 6 good games in 2 years and when we needed him for the last 7-8 games he went missing again.
Now it’s I’m not playing in the championship…
if we can get decent money for him I won’t be missing him, he’s replaceable.
Exactly right, very frustrating player who did very little in two seasons. One of the reasons we were relegated.
If he’s gone and sold at a decent price, won’t be missed at all, was almost like ghost player for us