West Ham United have made an approach for Stuttgart centre back Ozan Kabak, according to the Daily Mail.
The newspaper claims that the 19-year-old is looking to leave the German side this summer, with an ambitious club where he would have the opportunity to play regularly top of his list.
Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern Munich are also thought to be interested in the youngster, who has a £13.3million release clause in his contract following his team’s relegation from the Bundesliga.
The Hammers also held further talks with Villarreal over playmaker Pablo Fornals on Wednesday and are increasingly confident of securing a £24million deal.
OPINION
If Kabak does indeed want to play regularly then West Ham would surely hold the advantage over Bayern and Spurs. Manuel Pellegrini’s side are extremely ambitious, but the Turk would still have a much greater chance of featuring consistently at the London Stadium than at the Allianz Arena or the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Kabak is an intriguing prospect, and the team do need some centre back help. They struggled along with only three fully fit centre halves this season, so a young starlet like Kabak would be ideal to back up Fabian Balbuena and Issa Diop. £13.3million isn’t very much money for a high level prospect who has already been a regular starter for two different teams in two different countries. He featured for both Galatasaray and Stuttgart this campaign and can now leave the German outfit for fairly cheap. This seems like an absolute no-brainer for the Hammers.
