West Ham United boss David Moyes has made a big Amadou Onana admission ahead of the Everton meeting on Sunday.
Moyes returns to former club Everton who are led by ex West Ham academy graduate Frank Lampard.
But they are not the only links between the Toffees and Hammers ahead of the Premier League clash.
As West Ham fans know only too well, Everton came in at the 11th hour to beat the Hammers to the £33m signing of Amadou Onana.
The giant Belgian midfielder looked all set to sign for West Ham who had a bid accepted at the fourth time of asking.
But Lampard and Everton came in, offered Onana a greater guarantee of a starting spot and Moyes allegedly pulled the plug on the move.
The former Everton manager is Onana’s national team boss so his opinion carries some weight and his words would have been hard to stomach for West Ham fans who were excited at the prospect of signing the 20-year-old.
Worse still it has since emerged that the 6ft 5in star’s preference was to join West Ham but Moyes would not guarantee him a starting spot.
The Hammers ended up signing Brazil star Lucas Paqueta from Lyon for a club record fee. And that very much took the edge off of missing out on Onana to Everton.
Now West Ham boss Moyes has made a big Onana admission ahead of their Everton meeting.
“I think Everton are a bit like ourselves, there is a rebuild going on and I think Frank (Lampard) is starting to put things together,” Moyes said ahead of the game (Football.London).
“They have obviously not had as much money to spend as they have in maybe the past seasons. I think they have got in some really good players, Conor Coady, James Tarkowski – they are very good, experienced Premier League players.
“They have brought in (Amadou) Onana, who we liked as well, so I think they have brought in a lot of good players…
“I know that myself, we have brought in some good players and it does take a little bit of time.”
In Everton’s 0-0 draw with Liverpool last time out, Onana’s statistics were certainly impressive.
The midfielder had 42 touches of the ball, 88.5% successful passes, made one key pass, won eight out of 11 ground duels, three out of five aerial duels and won seven tackles.
West Ham fans had been hugely excited at the prospect of seeing Onana and Declan Rice forge a potentially formidable midfield partnership.
On Sunday we will see two of Europe’s most talented central midfielders come head-to-head instead.