West Ham have tabled an offer for West Brom defender Craig Dawson, according to a club insider.
Ex-WHU Employee, who is renowned for having the inside track on the Hammers, revealed on the West Ham Way podcast broadcast on Phoenix FM on Wednesday night (28:30) that the Londoners bid for the 28-year-old earlier this month.
It comes as the Premier League outfit’s pursuit of Alfie Mawson from West Ham has gone slightly cold, partly due to what Ex-WHU Employee claims is due to the indifference of manager Manuel Pellegrini.
“We’ve held talks about Dawson of West Brom,” Ex-WHU Employee told the podcast. “We made an offer three weeks ago after making an enquiry.
“We’ve gone off Mawson a little bit as Swansea are asking too much and Pellegrini isn’t too keen on signing two players from the same relegated team.”
OPINION
West Ham should forget about signing Dawson. The player they must land from a club relegated from last season’s Premier League is Mawson. Why? He is a younger and superior defender. Dawson is a solid centre-back who can also play at right-back and is commanding in the air and experienced in the English top flight. But he is not the answer for the Hammers, even though the door is slightly ajar for a move after he reportedly refused to join the Baggies’ pre-season trip to Portugal. Mawson is four years younger than Dawson and has come on in leaps and bounds in the last two seasons after joining from Barnsley. He is durable, reliable, utterly committed and reads the game very well. Proven in the Premier League, he would be an excellent partner for Issa Diop, signed for £23million from Toulouse last week. Clearly, the Hammers hierarchy aren’t too keen on spending £20million-plus on another centre-back. Which means Dawson might be more likely, and that would be the wrong move.
