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West Ham United transfer news: Yunus Musah eyed amid £25million Alex Scott roadblock
West Ham are “keeping an eye on” Yunus Musah at Valencia because they are unwilling to fork out £25million on Alex Scott from Bristol City, the Daily Mail reports.
The English teenager is “expected to leave” this summer amid heavy interest from around the Premier League [Ben Jacobs via Twitter, 9 March], but the price tag has put the Hammers off the midfield man.
In that context they are keeping their options open by looking at the ex-Arsenal trainee Musah, who is just a year older but already has 91 appearances in La Liga.
The USMNT international is noted as “super-quick” in the Mail report, and could provide an injection of speed into the West Ham midfield.
Fall-back option
Clearly Scott has quality when a whole list of Premier League sides are chasing him, but while 83 Championship appearances before the age of 20 is impressive the Spanish top tier is arguably a significant step higher in quality.
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Which of the two leagues are a better learning process to hit the ground running the English top flight is open for debate, but if the Irons aren’t willing to pay what the teenager will cost then it is probably moot.
With so many teams in for Scott Bristol City will likely be able to get their asking price met one way or another, so it is the right move to consider other options.
David Ornstein reported for The Athletic on 12 December that Valencia would be willing to listen to offers of at least $20million [£16million], so unless his performances at the World Cup in Qatar alongside Leeds United pair Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie have caused that price to shoot up he is clearly a more affordable option.
Declan Rice’s presumed departure is going to give the club a major boost in transfer funds, but necessarily leave a gaping hole in his wake, so whichever youngster arrives would have huge shoes to fill.
And both targets are surely going to require David Moyes to finish the job of getting West Ham to scrape across the line to Premier League safety either way.