West Ham United ready to launch unstoppable Jota Silva bid as threat of Brentford offer emerges
West Ham have reacted to threats from Benfica and Brentford and are now willing to pay Jota Silva’s release clause, according to OJogo.
The Portuguese outlet reported via their website on 8 May that the Hammers are now prepared to shell out €20million [£17.2m] after becoming aware of the competition for the Vitoria de Guimaraes attacker.
Thomas Frank’s Bees are reportedly willing to put an offer worth €15m [£12.9m] on the table for the 24-year-old, who is said to be highly taken by the opportunity to play in the Premier League, but has not ruled out a move to one of the greats in Portuguese football.
West Ham, whose interest in the two-cap international is long-standing and expected to continue regardless of the switch from David Moyes to Julen Lopetegui at manager this summer, has been watched five times by scouts this season, with positive feed back returning each time advising an attempt to sign him.
Silva has a year left on his contract and the chance of significant discount had been previously reported but the prospect of a bidding war may have now ruled that chance out.
West Ham push to sign new attacker for Julen Lopetegui
Dithering and losing out on transfer targets has been something of an unfortunate feature at the London Stadium in recent seasons, with the apparent differences of opinion between Moyes and Tim Steidten adding to the issues last summer.
If the Irons have been watching Silva throughout a campaign where he has scored 15 times and laid on seven more assists and seen what they wanted to see every time it would suggest the decision is made.
So decisive action will likely be necessary to bring him in since he is clearly in demand, and fans will likely be pleased to see the club ready to stump up and get it done.
At the same time, given West Ham have signed players in recent seasons only see Moyes effectively ignore them it would be sensible to at least gauge Lopetegui’s view of Silva to avoid the same fate as the likes of Maxwel Cornet and Flynn Downes.
If the Portuguese international is as highly-regarded as he seems to be then a fee of around £17m sounds fairly reasonable, especially in an area of obvious need, so cutting out the risk of his club haggling early on would help get an early deal done for the new manager.
There will surely need to be a number of additional attacking recruits during the upcoming window though, with the West Ham squad already thin before the January departures of Pablo Fornals and Said Benrahma.
In other West Ham news, multiple exits are now on the cards at the London Stadium this summer.
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