**West Ham United have been linked with two Arsenal players this summer: Fabio Vieira and Reiss Nelson.**
West Ham came into this transfer window desperate to sign a creative midfielder and a left-winger, a creative midfielder because we had been missing one for years, and a left-winger because we knew it was inevitable Crysencio Summerville was going to leave.
But just a week from the start of the season we not only haven’t signed anyone in those two positions, we haven’t signed anyone at all.
However, with the news of the Arne Engels deal getting close, we seem to have finally clicked into gear, hopefully this means at least four signings will come in before the end of August.
The Hammers have been looking at players from the Premier League, but a lot of them don’t want to drop down to the second tier. We were linked heavily with Fabio Vieira earlier in the week, and now Reiss Nelson is on the Hammers’ radar.
Over the last few summers Chelsea have become known for having a ‘bomb squad’, meaning a group of first-team players that are no longer wanted at the club, and were being frozen out. Axel Disasi was well known for being on that list and it worked out well when we signed him.
Arsenal don’t have that to same extent as Chelsea did, but Vieira and Nelson are two players they seemingly would want to move on from the Emirates this summer.
According to our insider ExWHUEmployee, we have no interest in Fabio Vieira despite the reports. However, with him being a Jorge Mendes client I personally wouldn’t rule out a move completely this summer. We do have some interest on former Brentford and Fulham loanee Reiss Nelson though.
“West Ham are exploring a few potential loan options for the left wing position,” stated Ex on The West Ham Way Patreon.
“As we mentioned before the club could turn to a few Premier League players who have now been told they are available. Two of them we have already covered but there is a new name to add.
“The first one is Reiss Nelson of Arsenal. We have been a long time admirer of the player and he is said to be keen to remain in London and fancies the prospect of playing regularly for us. He would offer good natural width on the left.”
Now it’s unclear whether or not Arsenal would want to loan out Nelson yet again. He has a year left on his contract, but the Gunners have a further year to extent. So you’d assume rather than triggering that extension to get rid of the risk of losing him on a free and loaning him out again, they’d want to sell him this summer.
Obviously we’d prefer a loan because he probably isn’t a player we’d like to have if we’re back in the Premier League next season, but maybe we could get him on a cut-price deal of around £5-8 million this summer, which wouldn’t be awful business.