Last week, talkSPORT announced that Newcastle were ready to trigger Maxwel Cornet’s relegation release clause at Burnley.
However, it looks like West Ham have now beaten us to a deal for the Ivorian international, with Sky Sports revealing that the Hammers have struck a deal with the Clarets on Thursday afternoon.
The player is now travelling to London and expected to complete his medical tonight after West Ham agreed to activate his £17.5m release clause after failing with a loan bid.
North-East reporter Keith Downie admits that Cornet – who played with Bruno Guimaraes at Lyon – had been targeted by Eddie Howe in recent weeks, however it seems he’ll be signing for David Moyes instead.
Here’s confirmation, via Sky Sports:
It seems we never actually showed a willingness to activate his release clause – The Mail claim we preferred structured payments – and some feel he wouldn’t have been a massive upgrade on our current options, however he is versatile, still only 25 and scored nine goals in 26 Premier League appearances in a poor Burnley side last season. He would’ve been a useful signing, but we’ll have to hope Howe has someone better in mind.
Speaking on talkSPORT alongside Jim White and Simon Jordan, Alex Crook has also had this to say about the deal, confirming West Ham have beaten Newcastle, Everton and Nottingham Forest to a deal:
“I’ve been hearing in the last few minutes that West Ham are ready to activate the release clause in the contract of Maxwel Cornet at Burnley.
“£17.5m is enough to get him. This is that left-sided player they’ve been looking at for competition and cover for Aaron Cresswell.
“It looks like Cornet could be on his way to the London Stadium. They’ve seen off interest from Newcastle, Everton and Nottingham Forest.”
We can’t even beat an egg at the moment .. Taggart played last season so isn’t new …Pope is more or less the same as Dubravka so we actually have a net gain of a decent defender and that’s it. In the 5 days of haggling over a few for Maddison our owners have probably made about 50 million in interest. Guys splash the cash and show some intent to the rest of the Division or we may be looking at a very slow start to the season before the powers that be realise this team can’t score goals from midfield apart from Bruno and if Wilson gets injured then what do we do .. give the supporters something to get excited about rather than how pretty the internal ground structure is now
Dave wilko(Quote)
You know that Newcastle were interested I buying Cornet, how? Because somebody wrote about it on the internet. Show me the evidence that Newcastle have ever stated that they were after him.
Ian Cusack(Quote)
your right IAN did we actually want him, if we did, we could have triggered his release clause last week, irons will be in the fire for those we really want hopefully still 4 weeks of the window left gives Howe a perfect opp to gauge what he needs after the first games of the season
kev(Quote)
Why would we want both Burney’s strikers when they ended up relegated?
Duane(Quote)