OPINION
West Ham must act now in their quest to sign Joao Mario as Leicester City and Everton have reportedly joined the race for his services.
The Sun reported on Wednesday that Inter Milan were willing to part company with their 25-year-old attacking midfielder for £25million and would even consider letting him go out on a season-long loan.
The newspaper claim that the Hammers are keen to bring him back to the club but now face competition from two of their Premier League rivals as both the Toffees and the Foxes believe Mario is an improvement on the current options.
Manuel Pellegrini’s side are right to be in the hunt to sign Mario as the playmaker improved with each game he played for the Hammers last season during his brief loan spell with the club.
The 25-year-old ended his Hammers stint having scored two, while creating one, in his 14 outings for the club and was hitting his stride just as the season ended.
It’s fair to say that Mario following his recent spell in the Premier League is ready to hit the ground running in the division next season if an English club recruit him and the Hammers will want to be the ones to benefit from exposing him to England’s top-flight.
However reliable Hammers insider ExWHUemployee previously shared via their Twitter in July that the Hammers were only looking to negotiating a loan deal with Milan for Mario.
Club still negotiating a loan move for him if possible https://t.co/Rl26sy0eDj
— ExWHUEmployee (@ExWHUEmployee) July 25, 2018
While Inter Milan will consider a loan move, the Hammers will be blown out of the water if Everton or Leicester City match Mario’s £25million price tag as they simply don’t have the funds left to compete.
Claret & Hugh reported on Wednesday that the Hammers had spent all of their summer transfer kitty and any future signing before transfer deadline day would need to be funded from players being sold.
It’s unlikely that the Hammers are about to a sanction a £25million exit for one of theirs stars which means the only way to beat the Toffees and the Foxes’ to Mario’s signature is to quickly wrap up a loan deal for him before those two clubs make their interest concrete.
If Pellegrini’s side don’t successfully act now in the race for Mario then they will end up jealous of one of their Premier League rivals if they successfully capture Mario as he will no doubt be able to be a very impressive player in England’s top-flight next season.
