Leeds United have given West Ham serious hope of landing a top Championship star Tim Steidten has wanted since January.
There’s no real love lost between West Ham and Leeds, two big clubs who have enjoyed some fierce battles through the decades, on and off the pitch.
If Leeds and West Ham fans aren’t bickering over which is the bigger club, it has been about who was the better player out of Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips. A debate that has long since been settled in Rice’s favour.
Homegrown Leeds hero Phillips has been so bad at West Ham he’s even been labelled ‘agent Phillips’ by some of the Elland Road faithful.
Thousands of Leeds fans even hijacked a West Ham player of the season vote recently to ensure Phillips came out on top.
But Leeds may well have just done the Hammers a huge favour ahead of a summer rebuild.
David Moyes has done a tremendous job at West Ham over the last four-and-a-half years. But he has completely failed when it comes to future-proofing the squad.
Big rebuild on the way at West Ham
That leaves his incoming replacement Julen Lopetegui and technical director Tim Steidten needing to sign at least eight to 10 new players in the next window.
According to journalist Kaveh Solhekol, Moyes snubbed a number of deals lined up by Steidten in January and instead insisted on bringing in walking disaster Phillips.
That, Solhekol claims, helped seal Moyes’ fate with West Ham’s owners.
But with Moyes leaving after this weekend’s season finale, reports have emerged Steidten is resurrecting interest in a number of January targets.
And Leeds have given West Ham serious hope of landing top star Steidten wants.
It is being widely reported that Lopetegui and Steidten are working behind the scenes on signings ahead of the busy summer.
Leeds give West Ham hope of landing Steidten target Rowe
West Ham face a massive rebuild this summer with three key priorities.
- To seriously bolster a starting XI and squad with at least eight-10 quality signings given Lopetegui will have just 16 senior players when six leave at the end of their contracts this summer.
- Considerably lower the age of the Premier League’s second oldest squad with young, hungry talent and the odd experienced star.
- Target players who meet the Premier League’s homegrown status.
A player who ticks all those boxes and is high on West Ham’s transfer wish list is Norwich’s Jonathan Rowe.
And that’s where Leeds come in. And there’s no lack of irony given one of the players Rowe could replace in the West Ham squad is Phillips.
The Evening Standard claimed West Ham were monitoring exciting 21-year-old England youth international midfielder Rowe as a potential January signing.
With Said Benrahma and Pablo Fornals being let go, Steidten wanted to bring in a new attacking midfielder.
Rowe has been named Norwich’s young player of the year after scoring 13 goals and laying on three assists in 28 starts.
He missed a large portion of Norwich games due to injury but returned for the big play-off semi-final with Leeds.
West Ham fans had been keeping one eye on those games knowing promotion back to the Premier League for Norwich would likely spell the end end of their hopes of landing England Under 21 star Rowe.
Well Leeds made sure that won’t be happening last night.
They smashed Norwich 4-0 to seal a place in the play-off final and leave the Canaries in the Championship for another season.
Steidten’s exciting transfer philosophy becomes clear
London-born Rowe told The Guardian recently that he feels he has a lot of unfinished business in the Premier League.
So that will encourage West Ham and Steidten ahead of a summer where Norwich will likely now have to cash in on their star player.
Because he is going into the last year of his contract.
West Ham have been linked with several players of a profile, age and contract situation to Rowe who also tick the homegrown status box.
At the weekend it emerged Lopetegui and Steidten are cooking up an exciting move for Sporting’s top English talent Marcus Edwards, who was born in London.
Angel Gomes, another London-born star playing abroad at Lille, is also being targeted by Steidten it has emerged.
Edwards is 25 and with a point to prove in the Premier League while Gomes, 23, fits the same young, hungry and talented profile Steidten seems to be looking for.
Gomes is also entering the last year of his contract like Rowe. Edwards has two years left but Sporting have made it clear they’re willing to sell to raise funds for reinforcements for Ruben Amorim.
It promises to be a very interesting summer and – by the sounds of it – the dawn of a new-look West Ham finally built around top young talent with the odd experienced player sprinkled in.