West Ham United want to sign one club's "fundamental" defender who's even been called a "symbol" of his manager's playing style.
West Ham form this season
Manager David Moyes' fortunes have taken a real upturn recently, after battling relegation for much of the 2022/2023 Premier League campaign. Indeed, back in early June, West Ham won their first trophy since the 1980s and first European piece of silverware since 1965; clinching the Europa Conference League on a stunning night in Prague.
Building upon that success, Moyes has since brought in new recruits and guided West Ham to seventh in the Premier League table; winning four out of a possible eight. Only Man City and Liverpool can say they've beaten the Hammers so far, over what has been a very promising start to the new campaign – with Moyes recently expressing his delight at West Ham's last few games.
"I always knew in between the international breaks that we had four games which were Manchester City, Liverpool, Sheffield United and Newcastle, so it was always going to be hard to take too many points," said the Scotsman to West Ham's official website.
"In my head, I thought ‘if we can get four points from those games, that won’t be too bad’, but obviously I was hoping to get more. In between, we had a couple of cup wins as well, which helped, so I’m quite pleased with the way the last month has gone."
Will West Ham sign anyone in January?
However, the east Londoners may be forced to take a dip into the transfer market once again sooner rather than later. A plethora of Moyes' squad, namely Tomas Soucek, Pablo Fornals, Ben Johnson, Vladimir Coufal, Michail Antonio, Conor Coventry, Aaron Cresswell, Lukasz Fabianski and veteran defender Angelo Ogbonna, are out of contract at the end of this season as things stand. As well as this, both Nayef Aguerd and Kurt Zouma have been linked with moves away to Saudi Arabia recently, prompting West Ham links to a new centre-back.
Harry Maguire, who is struggling at Man United right now, is being mentioned again after West Ham's summer interest while new names like Fiorentina star Lucas Martinez Quarta have also been identified as options. Sharing a Martinez Quarta transfer update, Italian news outlet Calciomercato.it claim the Irons have set their sights on the Argentine alongside high-flying Brighton. The report goes on to state that Martinez Quarta is a "fundamental" player for Fiorentina, and even a "symbol" of the way manager Vincenzo Italiano likes to play.
While there has been no official talks or contact thus far, Calciomercato.it suggest that it could well happen from a West Ham perspective. According to statistical football website WhoScored, the centre-back actually stands out as La Viola's best-performing player per 90 in Serie A so far. The 27-year-old has even chipped in with two goals going forward, with this form perhaps attracting the attention of Moyes at West Ham.
