Alex Kral likes West Ham tweet amid transfer speculation

Spartak Moscow midfielder Alex Kral has liked a tweet by West Ham amid speculation linking him with a move to the London Stadium in the summer.

Sky Sports reported on Tuesday that the Irons have been in talks with the 23-year-old’s representatives as they aim to continue adding to their Czech Republic contingent in the East End.

The Sunday Mirror reported in their print edition at the weekend that Kral is a target for West Ham for the summer and in the middle of all this speculation, the Czech international has liked a tweet by the Premier League club that includes an image of Jesse Lingard and Declan Rice.

Kral’s keen

Why else would Kral be liking tweets by West Ham?

If it was an image of international teammates Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal then we can understand it a bit more but the fact it’s seemingly unrelated to him suggests an underlying motive.

Kral has liked other tweets by the Hammers but they’re usually about Soucek and Coufal while he’s also regularly reacted to tweets by his club Spartak Moscow and former team Slavia Prague.

Is it a cause of the past, the present and the future?

West Ham

It remains to be seen how the talks have gone between Kral’s representatives and the Hammers but he’s a player we wouldn’t mind seeing head to London in the summer.

He’s a defensive midfielder who’s played 30 times in all competitions for Spartak this season.

According to stats by Wyscout, only one player in the Russian Premier League has completed more passes than Kral [1644] this season.

He also ranks fourth in Russia’s top-flight for passes into the final third [255] and joint 14th for smart passes [27], which is a “creative and penetrative pass that attempts to break the opposition’s defensive lines“.

Kral is clearly in the playmaker mould and would be a back-up for Declan Rice if he was to arrive at West Ham but that is something we definitely need in the summer.

However, the Mirror reports he’s valued at £30million by Spartak.

Can we afford that kind of fee on someone who’s a back-up?

In other West Ham news, the Irons are likely to table an offer to sign this £135,000-a-week striker.

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