da realbet： This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
da dobrowin： According to Time Sport, as reported by Goal, West Ham tried to sign Mohamed Elneny from Arsenal during the summer.
What’s the word?
The Egyptian international was reportedly a wanted man over the transfer window, with a host of clubs interested in taking him away from the Emirates before he made a loan move to Besiktas.
His agent, Alaa Nazmy, has revealed that West Ham were amongst that list of clubs to make an offer to his client, though it is not clear whether they were interested in a permanent or short-term deal.
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The Hammers were linked with midfield players throughout the window, including Everton’s Andre Gomes, but in the end Manuel Pellegrini had to settle for what he had, with just four players on the books able to play in central midfield.
Interestingly, it doesn’t appear high on the list of his transfer agenda, instead focusing on adding a striker and a defender, but given the lack of depth and quality, not landing Elneny could be a chance missed.
Upgrade on current players
Although Declan Rice and Mark Noble have made the midfield their own since the beginning of last season, but there is a worrying lack of depth in the squad, with players such as Jack Wilshere and Carlos Sanchez lacking fitness, quality, or both.
The latter is a particular concern, and if he doesn’t make some kind of impact soon he will rightly be considered a flop – he might already be well on the way to that having picked up a 2/10 rating from Football London for his display against Oxford this term.
Since signing in the summer of 2018 he has made only 13 appearances for the club, achieving a WhoScored average rating of just six in 2018/19, and therefore hasn’t provided sufficient competition to West Ham’s regulars.
That should be a concern for Pellegrini, and Elneny would have likely solved that problem. He was often on the periphery at Arsenal but displayed his quality on the ball when he got the chance and having settled in the London area after arriving for £5m he could have been a good fit at the Hammers.
He played only 15 times for the Gunners last season but his pass accuracy never fell below 91% and he managed 1.6 tackles per league game, which shows that he would have added to West Ham in both attack and defence.