West Ham have reportedly been priced out of a move for one of their top January targets.
The severity of West Ham’s injury crisis has not been lost on the club. Paqueta, Bowen, Antonio and Mohammed Kudus are all unavailable, leaving the Hammers with extremely limited options in attack. Therefore, it is clear to see why they are so eager to bring someone in as soon as possible.
A number of players have been revealed by ExWHUEmployee as potential targets including Steven Bergwijn, Serhou Guirassy and, notably, Jack Clarke.
Unfortunately, signing each of these options come with their own issues and a deal for Clarke seems to have an increasing number of barriers.
Sunderland’s star man has scored 13 league goals at the time of writing, and has been key to the club’s play-off push. Michael Beale’s side are understandably desperate to keep hold of the winger and have slapped a massive £20 million price tag on him in order to wade off any potential interest.
Disappointingly, their demands seem to have had the desired effect as, according to Football Insider, the Irons are not willing to pay that much for him. The East London outfit are on a limited budget this window with the majority of their funds needing to come from player sales. Clearly, they think that they can get a better bang for their buck elsewhere.
It is not just West Ham that have been put off by the valuation, with fellow London club Brentford also apparently withdrawing their interest. Maybe it is just a case that teams do not think he is worth that much.
There is no doubt that Clarke is a quality player with the potential to become brilliant, but £20 million is a lot of money for a 23 year old who has only performed in the Championship. You can argue that it was the same when it came to Jarrod Bowen, however not every player can hit the ground running like he did – and that is what David Moyes desperately needs.
The above referenced news articles do not necessarily reflect what is being reported by ExWHUEmployee on The
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