West Ham have had two bids rejected for Celtic midfielder Arne Engels and are expected to go in for a third. 

We’ve known about West Ham’s interest in Arne Engels since Nils Koppen was hired as head of recruitment at West Ham; he was said to be a huge fan of the Belgium international despite working for their rivals, Rangers.

The Hammers made their first move for Engels at the end of July, and it was rejected; a few days later, the second bid was rejected. Now, after over a week of barely any news, everything suggests a third bid is on the way.

Some reports have suggested that he hasn’t signed for West Ham yet because Celtic want to wait until their Champions League play-off vs LASK is over before selling him; the second leg of that tie is August 24, which could be too late, so West Ham could move on to other targets.

However, Celtic have just announced the signing of Paderborn midfielder Mika Baur; the 22-year-old midfielder could be the direct replacement for Engels. Let’s hope that’s the case.

I do expect Celtic to still want to keep Engels around for the UCL tie; however, if we do meet the £25 million asking price before then, they will sell. However, if this third bid isn’t the asking price, we may have to wait till the 24th to save that couple of million pounds.

We have enough in midfield to start the season, and I do like the new approach of not overpaying, but if we were truly serious about doing everything we can to get back to the Premier League, Engels would have been a Hammer well over a week ago.