West Ham Opinion: The Hammers should drop their interest in Andrea Belotti
According to Calciomercato in English, West Ham have been dealt a massive blow in their pursuit of Italian striker Andrea Belotti, with reports claiming that Serie A outfit Torino have rebuffed the Hammers’ €60million approach for the highly-rated 25-year-old.
Calciomercato understands that Torino value their prized asset at around €100million, although they have made it clear that they don’t want to do any business involving their star striker this summer.
Belotti is not the only striker on West Ham’s radar, though, with the Hammers currently hot on trail of Eintracht Frankfurt frontman Sebastien Haller after losing out to Valencia in the race to sign Maxi Gomez
Latest reports from The Telegraph suggest that the East Londoners are on the verge of securing a club-record £45million deal for the prolific French striker, with only a medical left to confirm the player’s arrival.
West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini has been in the market for a new striker since the start of the summer transfer window and the Hammers are expected to step up their pursuit of a new centre-forward following the big-money departure of Marko Arnautovic to China.
Andy Carroll has been released while Lucas Perez has been sold to La Liga side Alaves, meaning that Javier Hernandez and Michail Antonio are the only striking options currently at the manager’s disposal.
Coming back to Belotti, the 25-year-old Italian international has been on West Ham’s radar for quite a long time but Torino’s outrageous €100million valuation of the striker is likely to blow any potential suitor out of the water, forget the Hammers for that matter.
It is true that money flows like crazy in the Premier League nowadays but West Ham spending such an amount on a single player is not something that the fans would imagine even in their wildest dreams.
Belotti has been a revelation in the Serie A since his move to Torino from Palermo back in the summer of 2016. The old-school forward starred with 12 goals and 4 assists in his first season but it was his heroics in his second season at the club which transformed him into one of the best emerging strikers in the Italian top-flight.
The 25-year-old’s tally of 25 goals and 7 assists in the 2016-17 season made him a hot property, not only in Italy but also in Europe. However, he has failed to replicate those numbers in the subsequent campaigns, scoring 10 and 15 respectively in the Serie A in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons respectively.
Nevertheless, Belotti continues to be an immensely influential striker in the Serie A and Torino are eventually going to find it difficult to hold on to him for much longer, despite slapping a daunting price tag on his head.
Looking at things from West Ham’s perspective, the Hammers should continue to look at other options in the market simply because a fee in the region of €100 million is likely to be beyond their financial capabilities.
They have already spent a sizeable portion of their budget on Spanish playmaker Pablo Fornals. While Arnautovic’s sale would have compensated for that, the Hammers would be better off not spending such a massive fee on a single player.
Such a stance would not only be an outrageous gamble since a few other areas of the squad also require investment. Just imagine the consequences of West Ham spending close to €100million on Belotti and the move backfiring!
On the contrary, Sebastien Haller, who is as good a striker as Belotti with an equally impressive scoring record, would be the perfect choice and the Hammers have done well to get him.
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The 25-year-old has proven his credentials in the Bundesliga and in the Europa League and West Ham can certainly look forward to reaching great heights with the Frenchman spearheading the attack next season.