Premier League side looking to beat European rivals to double transfer swoop

Daniel Cabot Kerkdijk

• Updated: 11 Jan 2024 22:33 GMT
• 2 min read

Santiago Giménez is back in the picture at West Ham United. According to The Times, the Feyenoord attacker is, just like last summer, a serious candidate to strengthen the Londoners' attack.

The Mexican international then chose to sign a new contract with the Rotterdam team and it is expected that he will now wait until the summer before deciding his future.

West Ham also wants to provide the wings with new talent and has had their eye on Ajax's Steven Bergwijn for some time.

Journalists Paul Joyce and Gary Jacob write that Giménez should cost around €35 million, but that is apparently not close to the asking price that Feyenoord will charge as soon as a club shows concrete interest.

Mikos Gouka thinks that the Rotterdam club will ask for at least forty million euros. "If there is an amount between forty and sixty million, Feyenoord is always prepared to sell Giménez," the journalist assured on Thursday in the AD Voetbalpodcast.

"That would be a huge amount that Feyenoord has never received before. If there is a top offer, Feyenoord is not a club that can say that they have to come back next year."

According to Gouka, the question is whether there is even a club that wants to meet the demands of the Rotterdam team in the middle of the season.

"Which club is going to pay such an amount in the winter? Then a striker must be injured somewhere. The supporters would find it terrible. It is also annoying from a sporting point of view, because that second place is very important for Feyenoord," the reporter says. qualifying for the Champions League.

"If there really is an offer of that magnitude, and Giménez himself likes it, they will let him go. Arne Slot has also said that they will not lie down for it. You can buy a new striker for forty million." English media write that West Ham will first have to sell players to buy new players.

The London club, currently sixth in the Premier League, spent €137.5m on new players last summer. This was offset by €157.4m in outgoing transfers, partly thanks to the record transfer of Declan Rice to city rivals Arsenal for €117m.

Bergwijn is also high on the transfer list of technical director Tim Steidten. However, the Ajax attacker is interested in numerous Premier League clubs and the Amsterdam club is not necessarily sympathetic to the winter departure of the attacker and captain.

“They didn't call me, I can promise you,” Ajax acting technical director Kelvin de Lang said this week. “Steven is an important player for us. We want to keep him, also because he can be very decisive for us if he does well. He is a player we want to continue with.”