West Ham United will not be making a move to sign Yaya Toure this summer, according to Hammers insider ExWHUemployee on Twitter.
The reliable source of inside knowledge has revealed that not only will the club not bring in the 35-year-old midfielder, who is available on a free as his contract at Manchester City runs to an end, but that they are looking at bringing in players with pace and with youth.
Exclusive: Toure is not someone that Pellegrini wants to sign! He wants young players with pace.
— ExWHUEmployee (@ExWHUEmployee) May 22, 2018
West Ham are reportedly being linked with a move for Derby County attacking midfielder Luke Thomas for a £1.2million fee after being awarded the Young Player of the Year award for the Rams – at 19-years-old, he certainly fits the bill.
OPINION
West Ham are a club that is known throughout the world as being one where youngsters are blooded and one which has been synonymous with producing some of the best home-grown talents in the country throughout their footballing history. Now though, with the influx of foreign imports, that has gone out of the window somewhat.
However, with Declan Rice’s promotion into the first-team and now this apparent Toure rejection, it is a sign that they are looking at getting back to their core values as a club. Toure is past it, and not to mention grossly out of match fitness – his arrival at the club would spell a step backwards and if the insider is right and the club have no interest in the midfielder, that can only be good news.
Thomas is an exciting prospect, one for the future, and would mark a refreshing change in their transfer philosophy that would be more akin with their great past than their mediocre present.