**West Ham United are close to signing Reiss Nelson from Arsenal.**
After weeks of negotiations and doubts over whether or not to sign the Englishman, the Hammers are set to go through with the deal. According to our insider, ExWHUEmployee.
In the most recent update, Ex said: “In regards to wingers, Reiss Nelson’s deal is pretty much done; I was told and just waiting for West Ham to push the button on. The club are considering other options, however, and Edvin Austbø of Viking is a potential option.”
The fact the club still aren’t 100% sure on it but look likely to complete the deal is worrying because I think they’re right to have regrets.
My biggest problem with the signing is that he isn’t the type of winger we need. He’s in a similar mould to Bowen and Solomon, good dribblers with decent pace, but not burning pace. There isn’t one player in the squad with bags of pace, and it would make sense to bring one in on the wing.
For a reported £3 million, the fee isn’t bad at all, but he’s likely to be on big wages; he’s on a whopping £100k a week in North London, so I’d expect we’d have to give him half of that at the very least.
But money can’t be a problem; we’ve saved so much of it, with even more players on big wages still to depart East London. I just don’t think Nelson is what this squad needs.
Austbø is a lot quicker than Nelson, so I think he’d be a better option, but still I’m not convinced. Some of these transfer links are worrying after the start we’ve had, but we should still have more than enough to win the League.
If we don’t, Nuno Espirito Santo will be to blame, not whatever back-up winger we sign.