West Ham United news: Arsenal pull out all the stops to keep Eddie Nketiah
Arsenal are in a “massive battle” to keep Eddie Nketiah amid speculation linking the striker with West Ham, according to The Mirror.
The newspaper reported via their print edition on 11 May [page 49] that Nketiah, 22, is wanted by six Premier League clubs, two of which are the Hammers and Crystal Palace.
Nketiah’s contract at the Emirates expires this summer but it is understood that the Gunners have held further talks with the England Under-21s goal machine and his agents.
The Mirror claims that Mikel Arteta is “desperate” to keep Nketiah and Arsenal are trying to “dramatically increase his salary” in order to get him to sign a fresh agreement.
Make an offer
West Ham cannot give up their battle to sign Nketiah without a fight.
He’s been drastically under-used at Arsenal and the fact that he’s only made a handful of starts in the Premier League this season shows that he’d be making a mistake by staying.
Arteta’s only desperate to keep him now because he’s scored four goals in his last four appearances – was he bothered about keeping him before then?
If Arsenal wanted Nketiah that badly, they would not have waited until the last couple of months of his contract to start playing him and start offering him a big pay rise.
West Ham, on the other hand, can easily turn around and say about what happened with Jesse Lingard when he chose Manchester United over them and also say that he’d be more likely to get game-time in East London.
Michail Antonio is ageing now and his form in front of goal this season has been inconsistent.
Nketiah is prolific, in great form, has top clubs trying to sign him and will be available as a free agent.
It’s over to you, West Ham. Get the deal done soon.
In other West Ham news, Sky Sports report that the Irons are finally ready to make a major move to sign this striker in the summer.
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