West Ham United are desperate for a top striker this summer but like last year have been struggling to make headway with key targets.
Transfer stress: West Ham manager Slaven Bilic
The Hammers have made signing two top strikers a priority after their failure to land a big name marquee forward last summer.
Slaven Bilic has been linked with moves for the likes of Daniel Sturridge, Kelechi Iheanacho, Michy Batshuayi, Onyekuru Henry and Olivier Giroud but it seems the club are no closer to adding to their solitary signing of Pablo Zabaleta so far this summer.
And there was more disappointing news for Bilic with another of his targets Anthony Modeste reportedly close to a mega move to China.
Modeste, who scored 25 Bundesliga goals for Cologne last season looks set to join Tianjin Quanjian for a reported £30 million fee, as reported by the likes of ESPN.
“It is going in that direction, although it is not yet finalised (Modeste’s move to the Chinese Super League),” Cologne chief executive Jorg Schmadtke told German football magazine Kicker, as reported by ESPN.
It is a big blow for the Hammers as Modeste possesses the kind of quality they desperately need up front to compete with the Premier League’s top six.
Anthony Modeste celebrates
Last season, the 29-year-old was behind only Borussia Dortmund star Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bayern Munich goal machine Robert Lewandowski in the scoring charts and would have represented quite a coup for the East Londoners.
Failure to land striker targets is a worrying trend for the Hammers who missed out on Batshuayi, Carlos Bacca and Alexandre Lacazette last summer.
Hammer horror? Anthony Modeste could be on his way to China
Bilic was forced to settle for Italian flop Simone Zaza – who saw his disastrous loan spell from Juventus ended early back in January.
The club will now be increasingly desperate to land at least one of their other prime targets with the resumption of pre-season training three weeks away.
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