Journalist apologises after West Ham transfer mix-up as Attila Szalai talks held
Express journalist Ryan Taylor has apologised while correcting a previous claim he made that West Ham had made a bid for Fenerbahce centre-back Attila Szalai.
Taylor tweeted on Thursday morning (11 August) that the Irons had submitted an offer to sign the 24-year-old Hungary international.
However, he later tweeted to correct himself, saying: “Correction: No bid yet from West Ham for Attila Szalai but talks on. Story corrected. Apologies.”
Fair enough
West Ham haven’t bid for Szalai then but they are in the hunt to sign the former Rapid Vienna and Apollon Limassol defender.
Szalai is a left-footed centre-back who can also play as a left-back so he’s understandably someone who David Moyes admires because he does like a versatile defender.
Issa Diop has left to join Fulham this week while there are injury concerns over Nayef Aguerd, Craig Dawson and Angelo Ogbonna.
Ben Johnson had to start alongside Kurt Zouma in the centre-back spot last week when we lost 2-0 to Manchester City and considering how many players we are signing, that isn’t really acceptable.
Luckily, we didn’t get completely humiliated by the Premier League champions, who relied upon Erling Haaland to score twice on his debut to secure all three points.
Szalai has never played in a top European league so we see signing him as being risky but Moyes hasn’t really got much wrong in the transfer window during his second spell as West Ham’s manager.
Let’s see how this develops but it’s good to see Taylor correcting what he got wrong and setting the story straight for us Hammers fans to take in.