According to The Athletic, West Ham are now weighing up a January move for Newcastle full-back Javier Manquillo.
This comes from Roshane Thomas – West Ham’s correspondent for The Athletic – who reports that the Hammers have identified the in-form Spaniard and Norwich’s Max Aarons as two top targets this month.
As things stand, the 25-year-old will leave the club on a free this summer, with him now entering the final six months of his current contract.
He’s set to be sidelined for a few weeks with a hamstring injury picked up in last weeks’ 0-3 defeat to Leicester, but has become Steve Bruce’s first choice right-back in recent months, putting in several solid defensive displays.
This isn’t the first time West Ham have been credited with an interest in the Spaniard, and it’s no surprise to see Premier League clubs sniffing around given he could leave on the cheap this month should we allow his contract situation to remain unresolved.
Whether he’s in our long-term plans or not, I feel we should be rewarding him with a new contract – meaning we could at least demand a higher fee if we did decide to sell – but I’d question whether we should be in the first place.
He’s still young, he’s arguably playing the best football we’ve seen from him and it would take a good few million to properly replace him.