West Ham make bid to sign Lewis Bate from Chelsea
West Ham have tabled a bid to sign Chelsea talent Lewis Bate after the midfielder rejected a new contract at Stamford Bridge, according to The Athletic.
The news outlet claims Bate, 18, wants to quit the Blues this summer to earn increased first-team opportunities elsewhere.
It is understood that the Irons have made a move to sign the England youth international while Leeds have also made an offer.
The Athletic adds that Bate is also wanted by Liverpool, Leicester and Brighton while Leeds feel as though they are favourites to sign the teenager, who is dubbed as “one of the most highly-rated midfielders in the country”.
One for the now?
If you see West Ham signing an 18-year-old lad, you would assume that they are signing him for the future.
However, we feel as though Bate could be someone who gets an instant chance in the first-team if he joins the Hammers this summer.
He’s already been described as a better player than Billy Gilmour by some of Chelsea’s coaches [The Athletic] while MRKT Insights co-founder Ram Srinivas has told the Yorkshire Evening Post that the London-born talent is “a well-rounded deep-lying midfielder” who is “well capable of helping a team control possession, acting as a metronome to keep things ticking over”.
West Ham have some good options in their midfield including Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek but with Mark Noble one year away from retiring and his performances not being as good as they once where, we can see Bate fitting into David Moyes’ pecking order for the first-team.
It might not cost a lot to land the highly-rated England youth international, who’s in the last year of his contract at Chelsea and has rejected the chance to sign an extension due to him not seeing himself getting many first-team opportunities at Stamford Bridge.
But if he comes to West Ham, we really feel there’s a place for him in the senior squad sooner rather than later.
In other West Ham news, the Irons are in talks to sign this player who could be a mainstay for Moyes next season.
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