Montpellier have rejected a £22 million Premier League bid for Elye Wahi with president Laurent Nicollin insisting that the reported Newcastle United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur target should be worth over twice as much.
With the summer window now just days away, Wahi certainly gave his price-tag a timely bump during last week’s ‘Game of the Century’ contender at the Stade OL.
It’s not often a player scores four goals in one game and finds himself on the losing side. But, thanks to Alexandre Lacazette’s own four-goal haul – complete with a 100th minute penalty – Elye Wahi’s remarkable display of finishing counted for nothing.
Well, in terms of the table at least.
It did, at least, take his personal tally to 17 goals in 28 Ligue 1 starts.
FootMercato, meanwhile, report that Newcastle have now joined Arsenal and Tottenham in scouting the 20-year-old forward; a jet-heeled, deliciously direct sort of attacker in the Kylian Mbappe mould.
Is Elye Wahi Ligue 1’s next Kylian Mbappe?
Nicollin, speaking to L’Equipe, admits to turning down a big-money offer from an unnamed Premier League club in the winter. He’s more-than likely to receive a fair few more before September rolls around; Wahi exactly the kind of hungry young talent Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle pride themselves upon.
“It’s a logical conclusion that players formed at the club eventually leave their cocoon. (But) the aim is for everyone to be a winner,” Nicollin explains.
“We have discussions with his agents and will open the door if we get the desired amount. Otherwise, he’ll be here for another season.
“In January, I refused 25 million euros, plus bonuses, from an English club. There are a lot of interested clubs. I think that, if Elye Wahi was the Marseille striker, he’d be worth 60 million euros!
“He’s destined to play in very big European clubs because he has the potential.”
Montpellier coach Michel der Zakarian believes that Wahi must still improve his ‘productivity’ and his work-rate in training if he is to fulfil his undoubted potential.
A member of France’s 1998 World Cup winning squad, meanwhile, wonders if Arsenal may be the ideal destination, with Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and co coming on leaps and bounds under Mikel Arteta.
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