Daniel Feliciano

Mon 20 February 2023 17:10, UK

Besiktas have opened talks with West Ham over the permanent signing of Arthur Masuaku for the summer, and want a quick solution to a deal.

Masuaku joined the Turkish side on a season-long loan last summer, with an obligation to make the deal permanent should he make 25 appearances throughout the campaign.

And Besiktas now want to seal a deal for less than that agreed price with the player just five appearances off triggering that mark, and West Ham are now open to listening to offers according to Sabah (20 February).

“If Arthur Masuaku, who played 20 games with Beşiktaş, wears the jersey 5 more times, the option clause of €2.2m in his contract will come into play,” they wrote. 

“Wanting to solve this problem, the black-and-white club started negotiations with the player’s club, West Ham United.

“The British team, which has not been willing to remove the clause in the contract until now, softened its stance in the face of Besiktas’ insistent attitude.

“Chairman Ahmet Nur Cebi and his team aim to clarify the issue in a short time.”

Let him go

Normally the club are quite stern negotiators when it comes to selling players, but it’s pretty obvious that Masuaku has no future at the London Stadium.

We’re not in a position where we need cash, and Masuaku’s wages are known to be relatively high, so at this point it’s best just to let him go.

Obviously we agreed the fee with them knowing they wanted him permanently, but the risk of them opting not to play him for the rest of the season and then us being lumbered with him just makes it not worth it.

Let him go and play football regularly in Turkey, while we can use that small fee to try and add more to the wages of Declan Rice to keep him around or add it on to the amount of money we need to sign his replacement.

Either way, there is no need to negotiate too much and while we don’t need to get taken for a ride, we also don’t need to try too hard to keep him around. There are bigger things to worry about right now.