West Ham eye Fulham midfielder Mario Lemina
West Ham have been in talks with Mario Lemina’s entourage over a potential summer swoop for the Southampton midfielder, according to the Guardian.
The newspaper claims Newcastle have also made overtures to sign the 27-year-old, who has spent the season on loan at relegation-threatened Fulham.
It is understood that Southampton are ready to sell Lemina for £7million despite signing him for a club-record £18.1million fee from Juventus in 2018 [BBC Sport].
Extra depth where it’s needed
Mark Noble will be sticking around at West Ham for what will be his final season in 2021/22 while we expect that Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek will also be at the London Stadium next term.
Away from them, David Moyes doesn’t have a great deal of depth in his central midfield options and that could be why Lemina has emerged on his radar.
The Gabon international is hardly an awe-inspiring player to see the Hammers linked with.
He’s basically flopped at Southampton, which is why the billionaire-owed [talkSPORT] club has sent him out on loan in each of the last two seasons and are now prepared to take a huge loss on the midfielder.
But as a back-up option to come into the side if Rice or Soucek are unavailable, he isn’t the worst player out there we could sign.
Lemina has plenty of experience, for starters.
He’s played 71 times in the Premier League and has represented Juventus and Marseille in Serie A and Ligue 1 respectively. On top of that, he has 19 caps for Gabon and 16 Champions League appearances.
If we have £7million to use on a back-up central midfielder then Lemina wouldn’t be awful but it’s not someone we’d be that interested in seeing in claret and blue next season.
Moyes should be able to find better.
In other West Ham news, Frank McAvennie is completely baffled by two transfer decisions at the London Stadium.
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