Hot Football Transfer Gossip: West Ham ‘swap Payet for Benteke’, Arsenal ‘make £51m bid’

The Boss of Goss Kevin Darling says "innocent newbies" to the big money transfer market West Ham, are already frustrated in their search for a 'big name' striker barely a week into the summer.

“The world has gone potty.”

That, friends, is the exclusive “insider” insight the Sun has extracted from the corridors of power at West Ham’s Boleyn Ground, or Olympic Park, or wherever it is that Hammers insiders currently reside.

This exasperated cry was the Irons’ response to news that their £31m bid for Lyon striker Alexander Lacazette had been turned down by the French side on the grounds of it being too low.

It’s hard to disagree with the West Ham insider’s assessment of the world, but what these innocent newbies to the big-money transfer market may not be aware is that it’s been potty for quite a while. As such, the Sun reveals that the Hammers are already “frustrated” in their search for a “big-name” striker; they naively assumed that having £30-odd million quid to spend on one would make things easy.

But no. In addition to their Lacazette snub, West Ham are set to miss out on Marseille’s Michy Batshuayi because he “wants Champions League football”, while they have also reportedly had a bid for Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson rejected. It means that, less than a week into the summer, the Hammers are already having to resort to Christian Benteke.

The “unwanted Belgian”, as the Sun rather insensitively describes him, is so far out of Liverpool’s plans that Jurgen Klopp is apparently prepared to let him leave on loan. Even then, the Hammers would not want to pay all of his £120,000-a-week-plus wages.

With £30m suddenly not looking like enough money for the big name striker West Ham desire, some sales could also be on the cards. The Sun says Diafra Sakho and Andy Carroll could be available (the latter for a rather optimistic £15m), while Talksport claims the Hammers could face interest from Real Madrid for their star man Dimitri Payet. The Bernabeu giants are tipped to move for the Frenchman after Euro 2016, as a replacement for the probably departing James Rodriguez.

Arsenal are already seemingly on-board with the world’s pottiness, as the Metro reports the Gunners have tabled a £51m bid for Juventus striker Alvaro Morata. Confusingly, the offer has been made to Real Madrid rather than Juve, because the Spanish side have a buyback option on their former player (which is a lot less than £51m).

Manchester City may make their long-talked-about move for Schalke’s Leroy Sane before the Euros, according to the Manchester Evening News. City scouts have been watching the £30m-rated forward “for months” and could act soon to avoid a “bidding war”, after the 20-year-old was named in Germany’s provisional squad for France 2016.

Elsewhere, Swansea want to sign former Premier League hotshot Junior Hoilett after his QPR contract expired (Mirror), the latest striker linked with Leicester is Ajax’s exotically named Polish international Arkadiusz Milik (Mirror) and Spanish side Espanyol believe Liverpool’s unwanted Italian Mario Balotelli could be the answer to their problems (Star). The world really has gone potty.