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Midfield star Ruslan Malinovskyi is making David Moyes and Antonio Conte look silly for January snub after West Ham and Spurs bids

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Midfield star Ruslan Malinovskyi is making David Moyes and Antonio Conte look silly for their January snub after West Ham and Spurs bids.

West Ham and rivals Tottenham Hotspur have been linked with mutual interest in a number of players in recent transfer windows.

Another player both West Ham and Tottenham were heavily linked with is Ukraine midfielder Malinovskyi.

It had been reported that Tottenham had stolen a march on West Ham in the race to sign the Atalanta ace in the January transfer window.

Calciomercato and Corriere di Bergamo claimed Tottenham were pushing forward with a move to sign the 29-year-old for just €15 million (£13 million) last month.

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Photo by NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP via Getty Images

Hammers boss Moyes had allegedly made contact to bring the 51-capped Ukraine international to the London Stadium in the winter window (Calciomercato).

Atalanta were keen to move Malinovskyi on in the winter. And the reports claimed both West Ham and Tottenham made bids to bring him to London with Moyes and Conte pushing for an initial loan.

But West Ham pulled out of the running as they moved to sign Danny Ings, leaving Spurs to have a free run at the player.

Conte then changed his mind as well, though, deciding getting a new right-back was the right-back situation sorted instead.

And Malinovskyi ended up signing for Marseille on loan with an obligation to buy for around £10m.

Now midfield star Malinovskyi is making David Moyes and Antonio Conte look silly for their January snub after West Ham and Spurs bids.

Because he already has two goals and an assist in his first three starts for Marseille.

The latest was the winning goal in a famous 2-1 victory over bitter rivals PSG in the Classique. It was an absolute screamer of a half-volley.

It was his second goal in back-to-back games.

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Photo credit should read OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

Malinovskyi is a talented and powerful player who bagged 30 goals and 28 assists in 143 games for Atalanta (Transfermarkt).

And both West Ham and Spurs are desperately lacking goals from midfield.

Malinovskyi could have been the ideal medium-term fix for that problem for what is – in this day and age – a bargain fee.

Moyes and Conte may have dropped a bit of a clanger by pulling out of the running when he was effectively on a silver platter for either.

For Spurs his goals from midfield may have proved the difference between making it into a Champions League spot or not.

For West Ham, they could have been the difference in keeping the club up.

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