West Ham United are going toe-to-toe with Chelsea in a bid to sign highly rated Torino central defender Nikola Maksimovic, according to Gazzetta dello Sport.
The Serbia international has been a standout for the overachieving Turin side and has attracted plenty of interest from visiting scouts as a result.
The Hammers have sold James Tomkins to Crystal Palace this summer and not landed a ready made replacement and as such a new central defender could well be in Slaven Bilic’s thoughts.
The temptation to switch to three at the back will also be in the Croatian’s thoughts, with a new signing to bolster options needed to facilitate this.
Maksmiovic is a former team-mate of Angelo Ogbonna at Torino and as such the pair could well operate well together.
However, the Premier League sides have been told by the Turin side that a fee of €30 million (£25.8 million) will be needed to pry the eastern European away.
