Hammers insider ExWHUemployee has been updating fans on The West Ham Way podcast about their attempts to sign Nikola Milenkovic.
The Hammers have made just the one permanent signing this summer and that was to bring in Craig Dawson on a permanent basis after spending last season on loan from Watford, but the Hammers are being linked with a move for another centre-back in Milenkovic.
Should West Ham sign Milenkovic this summer?
Yes
No
The Serbian defender featured rather prominently for Fiorentina last season, making 34 appearances as they finished 13th in Serie A but as he is now into the final year of his contract, the Hammers could find themselves a bargain if they can sign their target.
The pursuit of Milenkovic was discussed by Ex on The West Ham Way.
“We’re going back and forth with Milenkovic, but it’s always been quite close to happening. Now, I believe there was a bit of a difference in the fee, we wanted him for £15 million, they wanted £25 million, and we’ve kind of met around £17.5m-18m for the fee.
“The player’s terms are pretty much agreed as such in terms of the directness to the player, it’s those agent fees that need to be sorted. Obviously, every West Ham account with some sort of following is doing the usual Twitter thing where they’re copying what I do with the flags and the pen signing, or pictures of Milenkovic, or saying it’s a done deal.
“At this point, it is not a done deal, and people go early like this because they want to say that they’re the people that have broken it, but at this point, the transfer can still collapse.
“I think there’s a strong, strong chance that he will sign for West Ham, but I’ve seen players even closer than this that were actually on the way to the ground to sign the piece of paper, and then sign for someone else.”
TIF Thoughts on Milenkovic potentially joining West Ham…
David Moyes may see defence as an area that he needs to improve and add some fresher faces to, as Dawson, Angelo Ogbonna and Aaron Cresswell, who all featured at least 22 times for the Hammers last season, are all 31 years old or older.
Moyes may be looking to plan for the future and Milenkovic, at 23 years old, would certainly be a player the Hammers could call upon for years to come and standing at 6ft 4in, he could prove to be a threat in both boxes.
However, it seems that anyone expecting the centre-back to turn out in claret and blue in the coming weeks as the Hammers’ long-awaited first major permanent addition this summer has to wait a little while yet before welcoming his arrival.