West Ham United in pole position for Dan-Axel Zagadou, four-year deal on table
West Ham are in pole position to sign free agent signing Dan-Axel Zagadou after offering him a four-year contract according to Fabrice Hawkins.
The Hammers were keen to sign a new central defender on deadline day, but a move for Jan Bednarek collapsed when he opted to join Aston Villa instead which meant Craig Dawson’s £5.25m move to Wolves also collapsed.
But that doesn’t seem to have stopped David Moyes scouring the market for a new defender, with RMC Sport journalist Hawkins claiming the club are at the front of the queue to sign former Dortmund defender Zagadou although Lyon are also interested.
“Info RMC Sport: Lyon are interested in Dan-Axel Zagadou,” he said on his personal Twitter account.
“Peter Bosz wants to strengthen behind and the defender is free of any contract. Big competition from West Ham which is in pole position on this file. The English offer a 4-year contract to the former Dortmund player.”
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It’s been claimed before that Dawson is unhappy in London owing to personal issues and wants to go further up north, which would leave West Ham short on numbers.
The player now can’t move until January, but by bringing in another defender Moyes would potentially be able to grant him more time off with his family or be able to let Dawson leave for free and rescind his contract.
But without bringing someone in, West Ham would only have Kurt Zouma, Thilo Kehrer and Angelo Ogbonna as senior centre backs because Nayef Aguerd is out until after the World Cup while Ogbonna is recovering from a serious injury himself and is 34 years old.
Dawson has been having his own injury problems this season too, so further back up could just be coming in to help ease the burden a little bit.
Either way, West Ham are making moves for the experienced defender and it would prove to be shrewd business for the club to strengthen the squad.