West Ham were today facing a race against time to finalise their £30million deal for Brentford’s Said Benrahma.
Having agreed the move with the Championship club - which includes £5m in add-ons after an initial fee of £25m - the Hammers were putting Benrahma through the final stages of his medical this morning but were yet to finalise all the necessary paperwork ahead of today’s 5pm deadline for domestic transfers.
West Ham, though, were confident of landing the 25-year-old, who was also a target for Crystal Palace and Fulham, on a five-year-deal.
The move has proved complicated to complete, with Brentford standing firm over their asking price of £25m before they had to iron out issues over loyalty payments owed to the Algeria international before his departure. His involvement on international duty this week further slowed progress.
Benrahma’s arrival will see the West Ham board, who have faced heavy criticism across this window, make good on their promise to entirely reinvest the funds raised through the controversial £18m sale of Grady Diangana to West Brom, with David Moyes having also welcomed Vladimir Coufal from Slavia Prague for a fee of around £5m and Craig Dawson on loan from Watford.
The Hammers face Tottenham on Sunday, and Benrahma would have needed to be registered as a West Ham player by noon today in order to eligible to make his Premier League debut against Jose Mourinho’s side.
Elsewhere on the domestic deadline day, Crystal Palace were pushing to land Stoke goalkeeper Jack Butland as cover for the injured Wayne Hennessey.
Butland, who made his international debut under Roy Hodgson, has not featured once for Stoke this season.
Tottenham, too, remained in talks with Swansea City over a deal for sought-after defender Joe Rodon, who had been interesting West Ham.
However, after a stark warning from Swans boss Steve Cooper that the Welsh side would not cave on their asking price, the clubs remained apart in their valuations, with the Championship side holding out for up to £18m and Spurs not wanting to push far above £10m.
“What I would say about Joe or any other of our assets — and Joe is right up there as one of our biggest — it’s really important that if we do end up having to sell then we get something to show for it,” Cooper said, citing Everton’s £25m signing of Ben Godfrey from Norwich as a precedent for higher fees.
“We shouldn’t be selling on the cheap. The precedent has been set this year.
“The player [Godfrey] is not a full international, Joe is and you have seen how well he played for Wales.”
