West Ham United’s hopes of signing Sevilla striker Youssef En-Nesyri this summer have been dealt a blow after the player signaled his intention to stay in Spain.
ABC Sevilla report that the striker, who has 24 goals in 51 games this season, has attracted the interest of several Premier League clubs who are ‘keen on his services’.
Up to three, all unnamed in the report, have contacted his agent, Anass Ouzifi, in recent days to find out about his situation at Sevilla.
All three have received the same response from the agent: “En-Nesyri does not want to leave Sevilla”.
That’s something he has ‘assured’ to the newspaper, insisting that En-Nesyri is ‘fully focused’ on continuing to improve with Sevilla and wants to continue there next season.
That has pretty much ended any chances of him moving to the Premier League this summer, where he could have ended up in January if he had wanted to.
At that point, West Ham United were keen on him and willing to go big for his signature, but he said no to an ‘important offer’ from the Hammers that would have seen him more than double his current wage packet.
Sevilla understood the situation in January and thanked the player for avoiding speculation and focusing on the end of the season instead.
Like the player, they turned down advances from West Ham, even going as far as to decline an invitation to speak to West Ham’s intermediary, who was initially willing to raise the club’s bid from the €30m they made in their first offer.
Whether the Hammers are one of the three clubs to have approached his agent this time around isn’t mentioned, but given their history, it’s safe to assume they are.
Who the other two are remains to be seen; we’re sure we’ll find out at some point, although that’s a bit arbitrary given he’s apparently not keen on a move either way.
