Eberl: Gladbach are confident of signing West Ham’s Oxford

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Reece Oxford spent the first half of the season loan from West Ham at Borussia Monchengladbach.

Borussia Monchengladbach sporting director Max Eberl has told the German outfit’s official website that his side remain confident of signing West Ham United defender Reece Oxford this month.

The 19-year-old spent the first half of the season on loan with the Bundesliga outfit, and although he struggled to make an impression, he started Gladbach’s final three outings against Bayer Leverkusen, Freiburg and Hamburg.

However, West Ham decided to recall Oxford this month with the reasoning behind the move unclear – whether that was to test him in the first team or indeed to sell him permanently and rake in some money to spend elsewhere.

Eberl said Gladbach remain in the hunt for Oxford and stated his side have a chance of re-signing Oxford, if no other side becomes interested in the England youth international.

“We spoke to West Ham a lot in the winter break and we were surprised when they decided to trigger the clause to recall him. The tone of the discussions before that had been slightly different,” Eberl said.

“But I understand their intentions – West Ham are in a fight to stay up and they wanted to bring back a really good player to help them. However he hasn’t featured for them since being recalled so we are continuing to have talks with the club.

“I hope that no other club comes in and makes him an offer to turn his head. As long as that doesn’t happen, we have the chance of bringing Reece back to Gladbach. He developed brilliantly in the five months he was with us.”

Oxford is yet to feature under David Moyes since the Scot took charge earlier in the season following the sacking of Slaven Bilic, the man who gave Oxford his debut which turned out to be a man-of-the-match performance in a 2-0 win against Arsenal in August 2015.

Since then, Oxford has gone on to make 16 senior appearances for the Hammers but his future remains in doubt with the Hammers boasting plenty of options at centre-back in Angelo Ogbonna, Jose Fonte, Declan Rice, Winston Reid and James Collins.