International round-up
WHUFC.com
Enner Valencia's Copa America campaign got underway in the early hours of Sunday as Ecuador battled to a creditable 0-0 draw with Brazil. Valencia played 81 minutes of the Group B draw in Pasadena, with Peru defeating Haiti 1-0 in the group's other fixture. Winning his 25th cap, Valencia picked up a yellow card during the second half against Brazil and will look to build on the point when Ecuador return to action on Wednesday against Peru. Their Group B campaign concludes next Sunday when they take on Haiti at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
On Saturday, Senegal secured their place at the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations with a 2-0 win over Burundi. Senegal have a perfect five wins from five in qualifying and the Hammers' Cheikhou Kouyate played the full 90 minutes in Bujumbura. The Lions of Teranga can now focus on the final tournament, which will be played in Gabon early next year.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Dimitri Payet's preparations for Euro 2016 concluded with a 3-0 win for France against Scotland in Metz. Payet started to earn his 19th cap for his country and laid on the second goal for Olivier Giroud, when Scotland goalkeeper David Marshall could only parry his fizzing shot into the path of the Arsenal striker. France get the tournament underway on Friday when they take on Romania in St Denis and Payet will be hopeful of a starting role after starring in the warm-up fixtures.
On Friday, Doneil Henry won his 18th senior cap for Canada in a 1-1 draw with Azerbaijan, while James Collins will hope to play for Wales in their friendly against Sweden later on Sunday.
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EXWHUEMPLOYEE EXCLUSIVE COLUMN: MYSTERY WINGER REVEALED AND WHO ELSE IS LIKELY TO JOIN?
BY EXWHUEMPLOYEE ON 5 JUNE 2016 AT 10:09PM TheWestHamWay.co.uk
So another week and no players have arrived. This is not something that we need to panic about because already we have brought in Nordvteit, who is a massive signing. When speaking to my mate who works at Arsenal Academy, he said he was brilliant there and that Wenger was desperate to bring him back before we secured his signature this summer! Martinez the Spanish signing and Quina will be useful additions for both the future and Europe. Both of these transfers were brought exclusively by us at The West Ham Way, way before others and we are doing our best to keep our finger on the transfer pulse.
It is clear that we want to sign a forward and an offer did go in for Bacca!
However, he is currently playing in the Copa America and has a number of offers on the plate and will not make a decision until after this tournament has ended. I don't think we are overly hopeful on pulling this deal off. We have an interest in both Toulouse forwards and their links with the agent Mark McKay could prove pivotal (Braithwaite and Ben Yedder). Another player we have watched is Vincent Jannsen, who plays for Az in Holland. We are warming to players proving themselves from Holland, now Pelle, Bony and others have done so. Calleri has said this week he is going to get an Italian passport for his move to Europe and despite his dad saying he is joining Spurs (which I don't believe is true); I know we are still keen too!
I am aware that I am mentioning a number of names here, but it is genuinely the case there are others that I have mentioned in previous columns and chosen not to here.
David Sullivan works non-stop trying to get the right names in and is very frustrated. On the eve of two major tournaments (Euro 2016 and Copa America), it is never a good time to sign a player! Benteke continues to be a situation that we will monitor closely too. We are not close to signing any of these players at this point though. One forward who will not be joining us though is Vardy he has turned us down for Arsenal. He is expected to join them tomorrow. We did speak to the player but he didn't ever seem that keen and demanded very high wages and didn't show a real desire to play here whereas he seems to be excited by the Arsenal offer.
Sakho to Sunderland was a strange story of this week. Whilst it does appear Sunderland have some interest in the player they obviously do not trust him to stay fit. The deal was very heavily weighted around appearances and we know his injury record too. Whether Sakho would even want to go there is another question and rumours of him demanding to leave by preseason are rubbish. If we do not sign at least two quality forwards Sakho will remain at the club. We are set to announce the players who will be leaving at the end of their contracts soon and it will free up a lot of wages. All of these players I have mentioned in previous columns so I will not repeat it again.
Bilic wants to sign two wingers, with Tore being his first choice and the club will do all they can to sign him. At this point the deal isn't close at all because his club know how keen we are, so are trying to make more money out of us than we want to pay! DS is hopeful that Tore will be signed for Bilic eventually and of course he is not featuring in the Euros, which is handy.
We want to sign another winger who will not cost as much as Tore. This player who Jack Sullivan mentioned is Sofiane Feghouli another name that we have brought you previously. The player is on holiday at the moment but as Jack has said we hope to tie a deal up after that. He is an Algerian international (although born in France) who plays for Valencia. He is a very skilful winger and he is likely to be available for a free transfer I believe due to his contract expiring. I can say that despite us being interested a few months ago; N'Koudou of Marseille is not a target at this point. There has been a lot of interest in him from other clubs and therefore his price has been driven up. We will not be moving for Townsend either despite another agent reporting this because he is close to joining another Premiership team.
We are now interested in more wingers than we were before as our right back options all seem to be unlikely to happen now. Van der Weil seems likely to join Roma, Gokhan Gonul has a number of offers on the table as well. We do rate the Wolves right back Dominic Iorfa but he will cost a fair amount of money and at the moment Bilic is happy to stick and develop the right back options he currently has rather than gamble on unproven players.
Many clubs are showing an interest in Reece Burke and we have a real challenge on our hands to keep him! He impressed so much at Bradford and his contract expires in January. We want to keep him, he loves the club but he is conscious of the competition he faces this year and we hope to get him to sign a deal.
This week I took a lot of stick for saying Manchester United had launched a bid for Oxford. If I could say who the sources were on this (three of them), you would understand why I said it. In translation the offer seems to have been fabricated by an agent in close circles, as a way of making us as a club panic and offer him a much higher deal than before. These clubs are still interested in him and have had "chats" with his agent, although his future is yet to be decided and no official bid has come in for the player. The club hope he will sign a new deal soon and will do all they can to make it happen.
Speaking of Manchester United, whilst Bilic and the club obviously recognise the talents of Mata, his wages and the transfer fee for a player who plays in a very similar role to Payet and Lanzini means the deal is very unlikely to ever happen.
Ante Coric a young 19 year old Croatian who Bilic is very aware of is someone that we could sign for the future in that position and possibly another addition to our development squad. We have sent scouts to watch him a few times now.
One thing to remember with this window is that it is constantly changing and there are so many dominos effects of transfer deals. I spoke to Dave Sullivan Jnr this week who said how flat out dad works on these deals and that he is often left frustrated and unsure what is happening himself at times. Rest assured no one cares more than our chairman about getting the best players in.
Working 9-5 in a job unrelated to West Ham I am unable to know the ins and outs of every deal that happens on an hourly basis. I do my best to bring news as I hear it and I always verify it through more than one source but there will be times when this news changes without my knowledge. Under no circumstance do I try to mislead fans, I just try to bring news that I believe to be accurate and hopefully my three year track record has done enough to prove, that most of the time, it is reliable.
As a site we are continuing to look for ways to grow and expand and we believe now is the perfect time to do it. I am delighted to announce that Baz Cox will be running our West Ham Way TV at Away games. Baz is a twitter sensation who has built up a good relationship with the players especially Mark Noble who he was caught on camera singing a one direction tribute to.
Baz and his mates will be attending most away games including ones on our European tour and we are delighted to have him on board. Please feel free to speak to him about featuring in forth coming videos. George Allen will still produce all the videos and Evan Jones will continue to be our home game host. Having two presenters both with very large personalities gives us a lot of scope for future videos.
I would also like to say a big shout out to West Ham fan TV who we get on very well with and who set the bar very high for these videos. We are in no way trying to be competition to them but are aiming to work together on many future projects. As a site I have had one massive meeting and have another set for this week. Last week's has brought an extremely exciting feature for us which we will be launching in July. I will bring more news on this in the future but it is definitely the first of its kind, like our apps were when we released those in April. The Apps are due to be updated when Matthew Kirk, our IT man, returns from holiday and they should be even better than before. We will be adding our forum and our downloads feature this week to
the website too. One last plug! Our fanzine is almost sold out so please
get yourself a copy where there will be many exclusive articles and features only to be found there.
It's been a great day, and I have a few beers, I intend to finish the job off. COYI
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Sub role for Colllins in Sweden defeat
KUMB.com
Filed: Sunday, 5th June 2016
By: Staff Writer
James Collins was a second half substitute as Wales fell to a 3-0 defeat against Sweden at the Friends Arena in Stockholm this afternoon. Chris Coleman's side, playing their only pre-Euro 16 friendly ahead of next weekend's kick off were dismantled with consummate ease by the Swedes who had Emil Forsberg (40 minutes), Mikael Lustig (57) and substitute John Guidetti (87) to thank for their three goals. West Ham's Collins entered the fray with the score at 0-2 as a 64th-minute replacement for James Chester and enjoyed a relatively easy afternoon at the heart of the Welsh defence, but could do little to prevent the Swedes from coasting to victory.
Collins and Wales will face Slovakia (Saturday 11 June), England (Thursday 16 June) and Russia (Monday 20 June) in Group B of the tournament, which begins with hosts France tackling Romania in St Denis next Friday evening (10 June).
Elsewhere Enner Valencia featured for Ecuador as they laboured to a goalless draw with Brazil. The Hammers striker, who is widely tipped to leave the club this summer played for around 80 minutes before being substituted with cramp.
And in other international news, Martin Samuelsen is hoping to win his second cap for Norway when they face Belgium in a friendly later this evening.
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Weekend transfer update
KUMB.com
Filed: Sunday, 5th June 2016
By: Staff Writer
West Ham have been linked with a string of fresh faces this weekend...
* Sky Sports 'sources' (which we'll assume isn't Twitter on this occasion) suggest that Diafra Sakho is seeking reassurances about his future at West Ham. The 26-year-old striker, who continues to be linked with a move to Sunderland is understood to have reiterated his desire to resolve his future before returning to pre-season training. KUMB understands that West Ham are seeking a fee in the region of 13million for the former Metz star..
* West Ham are said to be vying with Liverpool and Manchester United for the signature of Marseille winger Georges-Kevin N'Koudou. The 21-year-old France Under-21 star - who scored 11 times for L'OM in 2015/16 - is said to be available for around £10million, despite having moved to Stade Vélodrome from Nantes less than 12 months ago for just £1million.
* England international Jamie Vardy, who West Ham were reported to have offered circa £20million for at the end of May is set to sign for Arsenal. The Leicester City striker's contract allows him to join a Champions League club for a set fee, close to that offered by West Ham previously.
* Bournemouth forward and long-term Hammers target Matt Richie is close to completing a move to the Olympic Stadium, according to Talksport presenter Tom Latchem. A friend of the radio presenter claims to have spoken with Richie, who is keen to complete a switch.
* West Ham are keen to take Gillingham's Bradley Dack on trail ahead of the forthcoming 2016/17 Premier League campaign. The 22-year-old has also been linked with a move to Selhurst Park whilst Bristol City saw a £1.8million bid for the striker rejected last January. Having fallen short in the League One play offs, the Gills are likely to cash in on the young forward, who scored 15 times for the Kent club last term.
* Reports that Barcelona are set to tie up a €20million deal for French defender Samuel Umtiti have been scotched by Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas. The Hammers target, who has already made 131 appearances for last season's Ligue 1 runners-up is "not in contact with Barcelona" according to Aulas, who admitted that the Spanish club had made an enquiry into his availability last week.
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Wolves star seeking West Ham move
KUMB.com
Filed: Sunday, 5th June 2016
By: Staff Writer
Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Dominic Iorfa wants a move to West Ham, according to a family member. The 20-year-old right-sided full back has been linked with a string of Premier League clubs since partaking in a successful Toulon tournament with England's Under 21s. Crystal Palace were considered to be the front-runners to sign Iorfa and fellow Wolves star Kortney Hause, but an an unnamed family member insists the Southend-born defender would prefer a move to the Olympic Stadium. "It's true that Iorfa is wanted by Southampton, Arsenal, West Ham and Crystal Palace," the unnamed individual is quoted as saying by Own Goal Nigeria. "But for obvious reasons he is more comfortable with a move to West Ham where he is most likely to get more playing time than any of the above team."
West Ham, who previously expressed an interest in signing Iorfa back in January have only rookie Sam Byram as a recognised right-sided full back on their books. In recent weeks the position has been filled by winger Michail Antonio, whilst centre half James Tomkins has also operated in the position previously. Wolves are said to be seeking around £7miilion for Iorfa, who played the full 90 minutes of England's recent 2-1 Toulon Final win against hosts France.
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Gold set to plunder Ligue 1
KUMB.com
Filed: Sunday, 5th June 2016
By: Staff Writer
David Gold says that West Ham are likely to look to Ligue 1 and the Championship again this summer following the successes of last summer's previous recruitment campaign.
Dimitri Payet, Diafra Sakho, Darren Randolph, Michail Antonio and Sam Byram are amongst those to have joined West Ham from either Ligue 1 or the Championship with the past two seasons, whilst the Hammers have been linked with a string of players from both since the end of the 2015/16 campaign.
And Gold, speaking via the club's website admitted that the club will be looking to those divisions again in order to improve Slaven Bilic's squad this summer. "We have plucked gems out of the French league and the Championship in the past year and we will be looking to do likewise again this summer," he said.
"What we have to ensure now is that we keep that momentum going when we move to the new stadium, and that means we will be bringing in some new players to replace the four loan players - Carl Jenkinson, Victor Moses, Emmanuel Emenike and Alex Song - who have left us.
"Our intention is to replace them with better quality. Of course we have already shown our intent by bringing in Havard Nordtveit, a talented Norwegian player who our fans will enjoy."
West Ham have agreed to sign four players so far this summer - Nordtveit, Manuel Lanzini plus youngsters Toni Martinez and Domingos Quina (from Valencia and Chelsea respectively).
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Vardy agrees Irons deal…then moves on!
Posted by Hugh5outhon1895 on June 5, 2016 in News, Whispers
C and H
West Ham believed they had clinched a deal to take Jamie Vardy to the club at around £105k a week before they were hit by new inflationary demands in negotiations. Arsenal are now big favourites to clinch a deal for the Leicester City striker on a deal whic is close to be around £120k a week. But ClaretandHugh can reveal the player looked to be on his way to the Olympic Stadium six weeks ago when we understand his advisors had agreed he would sign for around £90k a week plus £15k for every first team appearance . But when the two sides sat down to iron out the details they were told there was new interest and that a deal would cost them around £125k-£150k a week pus appearance fees. We believe that Liverpool had also been made aware of his availability but dropped their interest when they were quoted personal terms of £140k a week. Now the Gooners are close to agreeing a transfer fee of £20 million with City whilst offering the player £120k a week. A Hammers source told ClaretadHugh: "We thought we had a deal and it came as a surprise when the fee moved up so dramatically – there was a lot going on behind the scenes with other clubs!"
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New Sakho Sunderland 'spin' changes nothing!
Posted by Hugh5outhon1895 on June 5, 2016 in News, Whispers
C and H
It seems that Sky Sports are refusing to give up on their Diafra Sakho to Sunderland for £11 million story despite West Ham revealing the bid is entirely unacceptable. Sky have today new spin to the tale claiming the player wants a swift resolution on his future amid the speculation.
Well, given the story was started by them perhaps whoever is involved in breaking it could put the facts as he/she understands them on the line thus helping the situation considerably However, what ClaretandHugh was told again this moring is that nothing like an £11 m bid has been lodged.
Instead the offer was around half of that and involved clauses which involved Sunderland staying up for three seasons and Sakho playing 30 games per campaign. That suggests the Black Cats manager Sam Allardyce has noted the players injury problems and realised he is unlikely to have to fulfill any of those obligations given that in his two seasons with the Irons, Sak has managed 26 and 24 first team appearances. Sky then justify the new line they have taken with the following quote : 'Sources close to the player have told Sky Sports News HQ that Sakho is looking for clarity regarding his future, adding the player would like to start pre-season with the club he will be playing for next season." Blah blah blah
Well we an answer that one for him and Sky. He will be a West Ham player unless a realistic bid starting at around £15 million is made.
Okay, is that sorted?
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