OPINION
West Ham must swiftly accept FC Porto’s eight-figure offer for midfielder Cheikhou Kouyate to stop Pedro Obiang exiting the club.
According to WIW Sport the Portuguese giants have bid £14.2million for Kouyate in an attempt to secure his services this summer.
While Sky Sports‘ live transfer blog (Tuesday, 09:08) stated that the Hammers were in advanced talks with Sampdoria over a potential £8.9million deal to see Obiang sold in the current window.
With both seemingly facing exits from the London Stadium with talks ongoing, only one of them should depart.
There are several new faces at the Hammers this season and it would make sense to keep some players who are already settled in at the club around in order for Manuel Pellegrini’s side to start the season quickly.
However it’s clear that both Kouyate and Obiang wouldn’t be guaranteed starters at the club following all the new arrivals and both wouldn’t be able to regularly feature.
So from that perspective it makes sense to consider cashing in on one of them and it’s obvious that Pellegrini should look to get rid of Kouyate in order to justify keeping Obiang at the club.
Kouyate is attracting the bigger offer so financially his sale would benefit the club more than the sale of Obiang in that regards, and it’s clear that he has the least to offer out of the two midfielders.
The 28-year-old regularly featured for the Hammers last season and struggled to perform throughout the 2017/18 campaign.
Whereas Obiang shone in the first half of last season and was unlucky to suffer a knee injury that completely derailed his season and caused him unable to get back up to speed before the campaign finished.
Kouyate squandered enough opportunities last season for his sale not to look like a mistake this summer but if Obiang was to depart then fans would surely be thinking that it was too soon to give up on him.
With Kouyate potentially out the picture then Obiang would have a clearer route to the first-team next season and could eventually fight his way back to being a guaranteed starter at the club as he clearly has the talent.
Therefore the Hammers must accept the reported eight-figure bid for Kouyate in order to justify keeping Obiang at the club and in turn stopping his exit this summer.
