OPINION
West Ham must take full advantage of Leicester City hesitating over buying defender Aleksandar Dragovic from Bayer Leverkusen in order to sign the superb 27-year-old themselves.
The Leicester Mercury previously shared that although the Foxes had a £15million option to sign Dragovic permanently following his loan spell with the club in the 2017/18 season there had been a delay in getting a deal done.
According to the local newspaper this had seen Everton, Brighton and the Hammers become alert to the enforcer’s situation and that the three were potentially poised to hijack the defender’s potential move to the King Power Stadium.
It has since been claimed by the Daily Mirror’s Live Transfer Blog (Wednesday, 12:12) that the Foxes have indeed dithered over signing the defender and that the previously mentioned trio of Premier League sides were keeping tabs on Dragovic.
It is believed that the 27-year-old has concerns about moving to Leicester City as it is as he is worried about the lack of opportunities he will receive at the club under boss Claude Puel.
Also according to the Mirror’s report Dragovic is keen to stay in the Premier League and this should cause the Hammers to now leap into action in order to sign him.
The 27-year-old was very impressive in 16 appearances for the Foxes and was wrongly kept out of the team when Wes Morgan returned from a spell on the sidelines.
Dragovic has a no-nonsense style of defending and would quickly improve the Hammers’ current leaky defence if signed due to this.
The enforcer would not mess around when it comes to clearing the ball out of play and given that he knows England’s top-flight well from his time at Leicester City, he could easily hit the ground running.
Manuel Pellegrini may have already welcomed centre-back Issa Diop to the club but he needs to recruit another in this window and there are few better options that Dragovic to look at.
The 27-year-old could cost £15million, the fee the Foxes had agreed to pay, and that would make a deal able to be reached for a very reasonable price.
Therefore the Hammers must take full advantage of their Premier League rivals Leicester City being hesitant about recruiting the defender by successfully signing him ahead of the Toffees and the Seagulls this summer.
