West Ham United’s much-anticipated January move for Celta Vigo striker Maxi Gomez broke down over the player’s wage demands, according to Bleacher Report.
The outlet claims that the Hammers were happy to pay Gomez’s £43million release clause, but balked when they learned that the 22-year-old would demand £80,000-per-week in wages.
As such the move has been shelved until the summer, when the club hope to be able to bring Gomez in once they have offloaded a variety of squad players.
Sky Sports reported last month that the East London club were in talks for the Celta talisman, however, the move would ultimately fail to materialise.
OPINION
On the face of it £80,000-per-week isn’t much for a club like West Ham, Lord knows they have players on more than that at the moment. However, they clearly have a limit on how much the squad as a whole makes per week and so it makes sense for them to refuse Gomez’s demands. Besides, they are only turning him down for now. When the summer comes and they’ve got a few players off the wage bill they’ll surely happily pay Gomez the money he wants. It just doesn’t fit into their financial plan at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. By all accounts the Celta man is someone they have been tracking for a long time and, if Marko Arnautovic moves on in the summer as expected, then the Hammers will almost definitely move for him again. It would have been nice to have brought Gomez in in January, but if he signs in a few months time then it doesn’t really matter.