According to a report from France Football (October 20th edition, page 4), West Ham made an £18 million deadline day bid for Strasbourg centre-back Mohamed Simakan.
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The offer was rejected, however, with the French club allegedly holding out for closer to £27 million (France Football).
French media outlet L’Equipe reported on transfer deadline day that the Hammers failed with a late bid for the 20-year-old Strasbourg starlet.
And now France Football (October 20th edition, page 4) have claimed that the reason why West Ham’s offer wasn’t accepted was because it was well short of the Ligue 1 outfit’s £27 million valuation of Simakan.
David Moyes ended up strengthening his defensive options by bringing Craig Dawson to the London Stadium on loan from Watford.
But it is a shame that we missed out on Simakan.
Stats
The 20-year-old made 19 Ligue 1 appearances for Strasbourg last season. In those outings, the Frenchman averaged 2.8 tackles, 1.6 interceptions and 1.1 clearances per game. He also won an average of 2.1 aerial duals per match during that period of games (Who Scored).
Those are very impressive numbers for someone so young. But the Strasbourg ace’s age meant that spending £27 million on him would have been a big risk for West Ham.
Maybe this is one we can revisit in January, or even next summer.
Perhaps after another season of top flight french football, Simakan will then be ready to make the jump up to the Premier League.
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