West Ham United are thought to still be in the race for Newcastle United’s Isaac Hayden this summer.
The Northern Echo are reporting we are one of the front-runners in the race for the midfielder’s signature as he continues to desire a move away from St. James’ Park to be closer to his young family. It is said that we could face competition with Brighton and Hove Albion for his signature.
It is claimed the Hammers could have to stump up £15million to sign him, however, with the departure of Rafa Benitez, West Ham may try and take advantage of the current situation and see if they can benefit from it in any way.
Although we believed there could be better targets available this summer last month, there is no doubt that the 24-year-old could still do a job at the London Stadium.
As we have previously mentioned here on Vital West Ham, Hayden could be a good addition to the squad as he has the dynamism in the middle of the field that we could benefit from.
As the season went on, he appeared to be getting better with the more football he played and started to reach the potential everyone believed he could reach.
The central midfield was extremely solid in the middle for Newcastle last season as he managed to provide the defence with some valuable protection – something that could benefit us as we conceded 55 goals in the Premier League last year.
According to WhoScored, Hayden managed to make an average of 2.9 tackles per match with 1.6 interceptions. In comparison, Declan Rice recorded figures of almost an identical nature (2.9 and 1.5 respectively).
The Newcastle man could work well with the England international in the middle of the park as he is better at going forward; he recorded 0.9 key passes and 0.9 shots per game, whereas the 20-year-old registered 0.3 and 0.6 respectively.
