West Ham plot £18m summer swoop for Lanzini replacement – report
West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini is plotting a move for £18m-rated Nice winger, Allan Saint-Maximin, according to a report.
The Sun claims that Pellegrini wants a replacement for the injured Manuel Lanzini, with the attacker set to miss most of next season.
Other names on his shortlist, Javier Pastore and Felipe Anderson, would cost too much money either in fee or wages.
Saint-Maximin would only cost £18million despite being under contract until 2020.
Football Insider verdict:
Pellegrini wants to take his brand of attacking football to the London Stadium next season and he will have been gutted to have lost Lanzini – one of the few truly standout players in what was a miserable 2017/18 campaign. He's already been active in the transfer market and Saint-Maximin is an exciting prospect who could easily go on to command a much higher fee in the future. He impressed with Nice last season, scoring five goals and adding nine assists in 40 games across all competitions, after joining from Monaco the summer before for £9million. Nice will be pleased as they'll have doubled their money on the youngster and West Ham will be taking a calculated gamble on the 21-year-old. He's exactly the sort of player that West Ham fans want to see though and has represented France all the way up to Under-21 level. We think he'd be a good buy and would imagine he'd be keen to play in the Premier League under such a prominent manager.
In other West Ham transfer news, Rangers are plotting a bid to sign an enforcer exiting the London Stadium this summer.