WHZ View: Do West Ham really need reported midfield target Amadou Diawara?
West Ham and Leicester City are “the main suspects” amid interest from Premier League clubs in Roma midfielder Amadou Diawara, according to ForzaRoma.info.
The Italian football website, which contributes to La Gazzetta dello Sport, reports that the 23-year-old Guinea international is attracting attention from the Premier League ahead of the transfer window reopening in January.
It is understood that Arsenal were keen on the former Napoli ace in the summer but West Ham and Leicester now seem to have emerged as frontrunners in the bid to sign him.
Diawara has barely played for Roma this season.
The defensive midfielder has made just three appearances in all competitions due to testing positive for COVID-19.
On Sunday, he made his first appearance for Roma since September when he came off the bench for the final 10 minutes of a 3-0 win over Parma in Serie A and impressed by completing all 16 of his attempted passes and winning the one defensive duel he was caught up in [WyScout].
ForzaRoma.info adds in their report that an English club could table a bid for the Roma ace in January but it would take an offer of at least £22.3million to excite the Italian giants.
Do West Ham really need to spend that much on a holding midfielder?
Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek and Mark Noble can all play central or holding midfield roles while Pablo Fornals and Manuel Lanzini can also drop in to play as central midfielders.
So far this season, Rice and Soucek have been David Moyes’ go-to men in the middle of the park and nothing about their performances suggest that West Ham need to upgrade them in January.
It wouldn’t hurt to add some extra strength in depth to that area of the squad but Diawara, for over £20million, might be too costly.
That’s not to say the Guinea international isn’t a good player – we just don’t think he would be an improvement on someone like Rice.
According to stats by WyScout, Diawara completed 90.6 per cent of his passes last season, which is marginally better than Rice’s 88.4 per cent.
But Rice averaged more interceptions, defensive duels, aerial duels, recoveries and clearances per 90 minutes of league football in 2019/20.
If West Ham are going to spend over £20million on a player then it needs to be spent on someone who will break into the starting line-up without any questions being asked.
Diawara and Rice were closely matched last season and while it would be nice to have a player of the Guinea international’s quality added to the squad in January, we just don’t think the Irons can justify making a move.
In other West Ham news, our panel of West Ham Super Fans have named their man of the match for the win over Sheffield United.