West Ham United head of recruitment Nils Koppen is finally proving his worth as West Ham close in on two lesser-known signings. 

According to our insider ExWHUEmployee, West Ham have agreed a fee of around £10 million for Viking winger Edvin Austbø.

While Roshane Thomas of The Athletic is also reporting the Hammers have also made an offer for FC Midtjylland wide man Mikel Gogorza worth around £12 million.

Reports from Denmark suggest that offer was rejected. However, The Athletic have said the Hammers want to sign both so I would expect a second offer to come in if true.

I think the phrase better late than never is very applicable here, we really should have made these signings weeks ago.

However, players like this would’ve been very difficult and more expensive to get a month ago. Both youngsters were crucial to their sides Champions League qualification hopes.

Austbø played every single minute but one in Viking’s two legged UCL play off against Dinamo Zagreb scoring the goal to put them 2-1 up in the second leg.

His goal was an absolute rocket and they went on to win 3-1 and qualify for the UCL league phase. This is really quite a big coup for Championship West Ham.

Gogorza missed both legs of Midtjylland’s Europa League qualifiers against Besiktas with a groin injury as they lost 3-0 on aggregate.

He also missed both ties as they secured qualification to the Conference League. He has also missed all four League games so far this season.

This sounds pretty worrying, and to be completely honest his injury record doesn’t look the best. He has already missed 34 matches with injury in his career despite only being nineteen. However, he does have a lot of potential.

I think Austbø is the player that will make an impact on the first team sooner. The 21-year-old Norwegian has that 1v1 pace and dribbling ability this team so clearly lacks, and he can play both sides of attack.

Gogorza is a specialist left winger, but with his 6ft1 frame which is tall for a winger, he can also play as a striker.

He also has that pace and explosiveness, but Austbø’s ability to be able to cover for Bowen too might put him ahead.

His end product isn’t as good as Austbø’s either, but being two years younger he has a lot of time to improve that, especially this season in the Championship.

These two players are the exact profiles a lot of Hammers fans were excited for us to target when we got relegated, and even more so when Nils Koppen was hired as head of recruitment.

It’s a shame we haven’t really seen it up to now, but if we can get these two in as almost the back-ups to Bowen and Solomon, we could really start to prove we’re by far the best squad in the second tier.