West Ham have tabled a bid worth £9.5million to sign Alaves centre-back Guillermo Maripan, according to the Daily Mail.
The newspaper claims that the Hammers are hopeful of reaching an agreement to sign the 6ft 4 colossus, but Roma are understood to be in pole position to sign him after weeks of talks.
The Mail adds that Maripan has a £21million release cause in his contract, but the Hammers are well short of that figure with their opening offer of less than £10million.
Good move for West Ham?
Maripan has played well for Alaves this season, appearing 25 times across all competitions.
Alaves are pushing to seal a shock qualification to the Europa League in the final weeks of the campaign and the Chile international has played a major role in what has been a memorable season for the Spanish under-dogs.
Manuel Pellegrini needs to add to his defensive options in the summer but he should maybe focus his efforts on players who are already proven in the Premier League rather than going down what seems to be the cheap route of plucking lesser-known players from Spain.
Issa Diop and Fabian Balbuena have not been the most convincing of centre-backs this season.
This is Futbol rating 6/10
Likely to happen?
At the moment it seems as though Roma are leading the race to sign Maripan, but West Ham have reportedly tabled an offer and that is an encouraging sign.
Alaves are bound to reject that offer though and demand nearer to the defender’s release clause in order to let him leave.
This is Futbol rating 4/10