Director of Football Mario Husillos has the chance to show West Ham’s appeal in the transfer market by signing the man The Times understand is Manuel Pellegrini’s ‘priority signing’.
The daily newspaper claimed over the weekend that the boss had identified FC Barcelona’s Andre Gomes as the first player he wants snapped up this summer, and that Husillos has already made a series of offers for the Portuguese midfielder.
At most, those bids have so far reached £18million, but that is unlikely to be enough to tempt the Catalan colossus into selling the 6ft ace to us following his stellar year on loan with Everton – who are intent on retaining the former international regular.
A senior source from within the club has now echoed that sentiment to Claret & Hugh, as well, when they confirmed our interest: “He’s a player we want, but we will need to go higher than the £18million on offer.”
Tottenham Hotspur had also shown an interest in snatching the 25-year-old from under the Toffees’ nose, when their Chairman Daniel Levy was said to be willing to sanction a £30million bid.
Spurs may have seemingly now backed out of the stance as they look to chase Real Betis’ Giovani Lo Celso instead, but £30million is much more a fee we would likely have to pay to land Gomes this summer.
A deal at that price, and with the ever-growing interest in his services, would show how substantial West Ham’s weight in the transfer market is, and how appealing a club we are to players that can seemingly go anywhere and compete in Europe.
That’s not to say Gomes would be the ideal player to add to our squad, however, as while he may have given Everton a lift once manager Marco Silva introduced the 29-cap international to his starting XI, the £25.2million-rated man, as per TransferMarkt, only chalked one goal and one assist to his name in his 27 Premier League games.
Gomes also averaged fewer tackles per ninety minutes than only Samir Nasri, Carlos Sanchez and Mark Noble from our central options, and played fewer key passes than all but Manuel Lanzini in the season just gone.
