In a terribly kept secret, West Ham were scrambling around Europe on deadline day trying to bring in a new defender to help out David Moyes’ squad.
In the end, no one came in, leaving their manager with three recognised players in the role in Issa Diop, Fabián Balbuena and Angelo Ogbonna.
One of their targets was Mohamed Simakan, currently at Strasbourg, and a bid of €17m was reportedly made by the Hammers, who faced competition from Southampton.
That’s all according to Le10 Sport, who report the news as an exclusive on Friday, explaining the Saints joined the party for the Ligue 1 defender, but the amount of their offer hasn’t filtered yet.
Milan were also on the action, but they only went up to €15m, falling short of Strasbourg’s demands of €20m minimum.
No one appeared prepared to meet that, which is why the centre-back stayed put until at least January, when perhaps West Ham and Southampton could come forward with a better offer (maybe a bit earlier on than in the dying days of the window) to try and convince everyone of the move.
