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Keown delivers verdict on Arnautovic

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Image for Keown delivers verdict on Arnautovic

Former Premier League winner Martin Keown has said that West Ham United must do everything in their power to keep attacker Marko Arnautovic at the club.

BBC Sport reported on Thursday that an unnamed Chinese club had come in with a £35million bid for the Austrian international, who is on wages of £100,000-a-week in east London (source: Spotrac), which was swiftly rejected by the Hammers.

Keown has had his say: “West Ham should do all they can to give him a new contract,” he wrote in his ‘Tackle Keown’ column for the Daily Mail [13:24]. “Of course the money is tempting but why go to China now when he is still in his prime?

“Arnautovic is 29 and has done more than enough to prove he is West Ham’s most important player.

“Last season, he was the difference between relegation and survival for West Ham. Even if the club are not able to double his money they should at least give him a significant improvement on his current terms to convince him to stay”

OPINION

The only reason for Arnautovic to move to China would be for money, and he’s probably on decent wages at the London Stadium as it is. If the Hammers can offer him a bit of a pay hike then you’d think he’d want to stay. The problem is that there are stories of this nature seemingly every week with Arnautovic, and his brother and agent seems to continually be instigating a move away from the club. Ultimately he wouldn’t do that without Aranutovic’s knowledge or consent. Perhaps then the player really does want to leave. If that’s the case then the club can either do what Keown says and put more money on the table to try and convince him to stay, or simply take the cash for someone who doesn’t want to be there and who will soon be in his thirties. To be honest this is a win win situation for the Hammers. As long as Arnautovic’s performances don’t suffer, they either get to keep their best player or they come away with a boatload of cash – not a bad situation to be in.

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