West Ham have eased up in their interest in ex-Arsenal striker Chuba Akpom, according to Football Insider.
It is understood that the Hammers had been plotting a swoop for the 24-year-old, who currently plays in Greece with PAOK Salonika, where he has refused to sign a new deal.
But uncertainty surrounding the future of manager Manuel Pellegrini means that the club have decided to cool their pursuit, with head of recruitment Mario Husillos also in a seemingly precarious position.
OPINION
This probably says a whole lot more about Pellegrini’s position as manager than it does about anything else. Akpom is a young player who hit a goal every 211 minutes in the Greek league last season, as per Transfermarkt, and there are certainly much worse goalscoring records than that knocking about. That being said, the fact that the Hammers aren’t willing to go in for him would seemingly suggest that they don’t believe in Pellegrini as a long term option as manager. If he isn’t going to be there in January, why would you make moves to bring in the players that he has identified? If that is the case, then this is surely destined to end badly for the Chilean, and if his team can’t get a half decent result against Akpom’s former side Arsenal on Monday night, it could end a lot sooner than the under fire boss would like too.
