After Mohammed Kudus became the first West Ham United player to join Premier League rivals Tottenham Hotspur since Scott Parker in 2011, could one of Thomas Frank’s roster move in the other direction?
Now, Spurs may have finished three places and five points worse off than the Hammers last term – comfortably their worst-ever campaign in the competition – but there are still a handful of Tottenham players many at the London Stadium would be happy to put the rivalry aside to sign.
That Tottenham ended up just one spot above the relegation zone despite boasting such talent as Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison, Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall, Christian Romero, Pedro Porro, Micky van de Ven and Brennan Johnson is a pretty damning indictment of Ange Postecoglou’s tactical failures.
Postecoglou’s successor is confident Mohammed Kudus will help turn things around, at least.
David Sullivan accepted Tottenham’s £54.5 million bid in mid-July. Thus, snapping a 14-year tradition of West Ham United refusing to do business with their neighbours from the north.
But, speaking on talkSPORT, host Hugh Woozencroft wonders if Graham Potter and Kyle Macaulay could yet open talks with Tottenham again in pursuit of a familiar face; Yves Bissouma.
West Ham United tipped to make a move for Tottenham Hotspur’s Yves Bissouma
Italian publication Gazzetta dello Sport claimed last week that West Ham are considering Tottenham’s Yves Bissouma. A highly-talented if maddeningly inconsistent midfielder who Potter got the very best out of before his £35 million move to the capital in 2022.
Whether there is any truth to those reports remains to be seen. But Bissouma – the ex-Lille playmaker is allegedly a long-term West Ham target and was described by Potter as ‘an incredible talent’ – may be in need of a fresh start following the addition of Joao Palhinha on loan from Bayern Munich this week.
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“[Potter] brought in the recruitment person who worked with him at Brighton and Chelsea,” says Woozencroft, West Ham’s head of recruitment Kyle Macaulay another who knows Bissouma well from their time together at The Amex.
“Bissouma has got a pre-existing relationship with Potter. He looks surplus to requirements at Spurs. Will they go and do an easy deal for him?”
A question which will be answered in time.
West Ham linked with Arsenal duo Fabio Vieira and Oleksandr Zinchenko
While 28-year-old Bissouma may be older than West Ham would ideally like in terms of their more expensive transfer targets, the other names reportedly under consideration share the Mali international’s mix of physical and technical gifts.
See, for instance, Southampton duo Shea Charles and Mateus Fernandes. Club Brugge enforcer Raphael Onyedika is Macaulay’s first-choice, Hammers News understands, while Romano Schmid and Douglas Luiz have been mentioned too in dispatches.
Woozencroft wonders if Potter and Macaulay could also look close to home in pursuit of bargain deals for Premier League talents surplus to requirements.
Ben Jacobs claims that Arsenal misfit Fabio Vieira is on West Ham’s radar. The versatile Oleksandr Zinchenko may be open to joining Potter’s ranks too, football correspondent Graeme Bailey informed Hammers News in June.
“I look at West Ham and think maybe they are waiting for late on in the window,” Woozencroft muses.
“Maybe they are looking at Arsenal, as another London club, and think; ‘If they are going to loan a few players out, can we take a couple of them?’
“They will look at a number of players at Chelsea who may be going out on loan, some younger players and maybe think; ‘If we wait, we won’t have to spend big money and we can get a few decent players in to help us’.”