West Ham are in the hunt to sign Brentford attacker Neal Maupay, according to Sky Sports.
The broadcaster claim that the Hammers, Aston Villa, Brighton and Sheffield United had all expressed an interest in the 22-year-old forward and that Brentford have given him permission to return to France for three days due to him not being in the right frame of mind due to his uncertain future.
Sky Sports report that Brentford want in the region of £20million for him and that Maupay is set to return to the Bees’ Jersey Road training ground on Tuesday.
OPINION
West Ham need a new forward after waving goodbye to Marko Arnautovic, Andy Carroll and Lucas Perez, so why not take a chance of Maupay? The 22-year-old scored 28 goals and racked up nine assists in the 49 appearances he made for Brentford last season, so surely there’s a chance he could be the man to fire the Hammers up the league. While Maupay has only proven himself to be a prolific goalscorer in the Championship so far in his career, there’s no saying he won’t be able to make the step up to the Premier League. The Championship forward averaged an impressive 3.3 shots per game in his league outings, and did win Man of the Match on four occasions. So clearly he is ready to try himself a higher level as if he is finding enough space to have almost four-shots per game without playing for one of the top Championship sides (Source: WhoScored), surely it suggests that he may be ready for a tougher challenge.
