Soungoutou Magassa & mega-contract star - Three West Ham players destined for January exit

West Ham United are well into their bid to earn instant promotion back to the Premier League.

Despite relegation to the Championship, Nuno Espirito Santo and some of his key players stuck around.

Jarrod Bowen, Taty Castellanos and Konstantinos Mavropanos are two of the biggest names still at the London Stadium.

Eight games in and the Hammers are currently second in the Championship, looking strong for promotion.

With eight teams now given a shot at promotion, Nuno has little excuse to at least have West Ham in the picture.

But, West Ham Zone have picked out three players who may not be around to see those possible promotion celebrations.

Soungoutou Magassa

The French midfielder was pushing to leave West Ham in the summer, but it never quite materialised.

Magassa arrived as somewhat of an unknown from Monaco, but did cost a little under £20million.

There were some bright spots in the Premier League, and he was expected to get the chance to shine in the second tier.

That hasn't happened, and after links with Galatasaray and Sevilla over the summer, he could push to go again in January.

Keiber Lamadrid

Lamadrid is an experiment that simply hasn't worked.

It's similar to Luis Guilherme, who arrived from Brazil and left for Portugal within the space of a year.

Originally signing on loan from Venezuela, Lamadrid hardly played but still earned a permanent move this summer.

It has not worked at all, and it's time to cut our losses.

Edson Alvarez

With rumours that Valencia could offer Alvarez an escape route from West Ham, it's time to take that.

The Mexican featured against Portsmouth in the Carabao Cup somewhat surprisingly at the start of the season, but hasn't been seen since.

On £148,000-a-week wages when signed, it's clear that Alvarez and West Ham need to part ways, and soon.

What better time than January to get that done?

Nuno had to bide his time to get his summer business done with turmoil in the boardroom, but Daniel Kretinsky appears to have stepped forward and settled that.

It's now time for them both to prove their worth, with West Ham being firmly in that top two by January and money being made available to make sure it doesn't slip.

These exits could help that.