Duje Caleta-Car has told Marseille he has no interest in leaving the Ligue 1 giants despite interest from West Ham United, coach Andre Villas-Boas revealed to Maxifoot.
Perhaps the Hammers don’t need a new central defender after all?
While spending most of the past six weeks chasing James Tarkowski, Jonathan Tah and Wesley Fofana to name a few, Angelo Ogbonna and Fabian Balbuena have set about silencing their critics.
After combining to keep Raul Jimenez off the scoresheet during the 4-0 thrashing of Wolves, the Italian-Paraguayan partnership was faultless once more as West Ham stormed to a shock 3-0 win at Leicester City.
So perhaps being snubbed by a highly rated Croatia international isn’t such a disaster after all.
“It’s incredible this transfer window. It’s very hard, we started to receive offers (for our star players),” says former Chelsea and Tottenham boss Villas-Boas.
“Duje told us he was going to stay – he wants to play the League of Champions with us.”
Marseille, who finished second in Ligue 1 last season behind eternal champions PSG, received a £20 million offer from West Ham on Friday, according to Sky.
That would have seen L’OM make a profit, albeit a small one, on a 24-year-old nabbed off the relentless Red Bull Salzburg production line in 2018.
West Ham’s record transfers
- Sebastien Haller
£45 million
- Felipe Anderson
£41.5 million
- Marko Arnautovic
£25 million
- Pablo Fornals
£24 million
- Issa Diop
£22 million
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