West Ham United supporters shouldn’t read too much into reports linking them with a summer move for Genoa striker Christian Kouame, according to Claret & Hugh.
The reliable Hammers news source claims that they were informed by a club source that this isn’t a link that fans should be getting overly-excited about.
West Ham have scouts watching players every week throughout the year and so Calcio Mercato‘s report that the club are competing with Italian against Napoli for the 21-year-old isn’t big news.
It is stated that Kouame’s side Genoa won’t accept less than £21.5million for a player who has scored just four times in 32 games in all competitions this season.
OPINION
The club insider’s response here makes a lot of sense. There’s no need for the West Ham faithful to get getting too excited or too down on the possibility of signing Kouame, especially if Napoli are also interested in him. The club probably have scouted him, but there’s likely to be little more than that in it. Kouame’s record this campaign is nothing to write home about and, with the Hammers eager to bring in a top quality frontman this summer, it’s doubtful that he would be able to provide the cutting edge required to make an impact in the Premier League from a purely goalscoring standpoint. He is a young player so he’s obviously going to get better as time goes on, but West Ham already have Xande Silva as a young striker who Manuel Pellegrini clearly rates highly. Why not focus on building him up and bring in a veteran hitman like Edin Dzeko instead? That would appear to be a better move than making an expensive play for someone like Kouame.
