If reports this week are to be believed, it seems West Ham United manager David Moyes has not been put off by Denis Zakaria’s quite unsuccessful season long loan spell with Chelsea in the 2022/23 campaign, as it is being claimed that we are now leading the chase for the 26 year old Switzerland international.
The report stems originally from Sky Sport Italia and although the Juventus owned player only made seven starting appearances for the Stamford Bridge outfit last season (four showings as a substitute), the spell quickly went downhill after he scored on his debut for them in their Champions League clash with Dinamo Zagreb.
Plenty will believe that was more to do with the position Chelsea found themselves in, as opposed to the player himself, and it seems Moyes agrees with that sentiment.
Sky state that we are now in ‘advanced negotiations’ on what would be a permanent move for the 49 capped midfielder, and it would quite easily seem that as he is most naturally a more defensive minded player, that Moyes sees him as a direct replacement for what should be an Arsenal bound Declan Rice.
Whilst I cannot see any speculation about a potential transfer fee, Juventus only paid a reported 8.6 million Euros for him when they signed him from Borussia Monchengladbach back in January 2022, so I would imagine any deal would at least be within the ballpark of that fee but it does seem a potential deal could be quite advanced here given the many telephone calls that are referenced during the negotiation period.
Whilst fans will naturally look at his spell at Chelsea last season, given all their upheaval and some of the bizarre spending sprees they went on which definitely effected any possible team cohesion, even though he did not overly impress, we could well benefit from his spell there are he now does better know the league, the pace and the physicality of the English game, so should we make a move for him, he would require slightly less of a settling in period – particularly having already tasted London life.
We will have to see if anything comes of this.
