Daniel Feliciano

Tue 13 December 2022 19:40, UK

Torino technical director Davide Vagnati has been in England trying to seal a £12.8m deal to sign Nikola Vlasic from West Ham permanently, according to La Stampa.

The Croatian winger has been on loan in Turin this season from the London Stadium and has been in fine form, which has seen the Serie A club linked with making his transfer permanent at the end of the season.

But amid reports that there are now other interested parties in getting a deal done with him, Vagnati has travelled to London to ensure they aren’t caught napping by other clubs and is trying to get a deal done in advance.

“Vagnati is now in a hurry to buy out the Croatian Vlasic,” they wrote, via Toro News (13 December).

“The buyout from West Ham costs 15 million and although Torino has precedence, they can’t stay calm.

“So the goal is to reassure his owners and secure him in advance, so as not to risk dangerous auctions that have not done well in the recent past.

“Vagnati’s mission to England also served to reaffirm Leicester’s desire to take it [Praet] back, especially if Lukic leaves”.

Lovely

When Vlasic joined West Ham, there were plenty of eyebrows raised at the fact that we paid around £30m for a relatively unproven talent.

Those doubts proved to be fair, as he really struggled to adapt to the Premier League and barely featured under David Moyes despite so many fixtures in both Europe and domestically last season.

He left on loan and has done really well in Italy, a league that is much slower and where the team are playing directly to his strengths as he is one of their better players.

West Ham are almost certain to take a big loss on the player now, but with more than one club interested hopefully the board are able to negotiate a better price than the £12.8m that was previously agreed to allow them to do a deal early.

That cash could then potentially be reinvested into the squad for Moyes to strengthen further in January, after a really poor start to the season so far.