West Ham have held talks with Paris Saint-Germain over the signing of German defender Thilo Kehrer according to reports.
The Hammers have spent almost £100million on five signings so far this summer, but are still in the market for a defender. David Moyes’s men are pushing to sign a left-back and central midfield player but will now turn their attention to signing Kehrer given the lack of options they have in defence.
Injuries to Nayef Aguerd and Craig Dawson and the unavailability of Angelo Ogbonna, who is not yet ready to return from an ACL injury, meant that Moyes went into Sunday’s Premier League defeat by Manchester City with Kurt Zouma as his only available senior centre-back.
This has led West Ham to focus their attention on signing a defender this summer, and Keher, who is according to Sportsmail, available for around £17m the main target. The German international predominantly can play as a football and a centre-back and so would provide much-needed back-line reinforcement.
The 25-year-old German is extremely quick, is a good passer of the ball, and is regarded by many as a potentially world-class player.
But he has struggled Kehrer joined PSG in 2018 for a reported 37 million euros from German side Schalke 04. In his four years at the club, he has won three Ligue 1 titles but has failed to hold down a regular place in the starting XI.
He is among the eleven players that PSG have earmarked to sell given that he has entered the final year of his contract. And so the French champions want to sell him this summer rather than allow him to walk away for nothing at the end of the campaign.
Meanwhile, West Ham have agreed to sell defender Issa Diop to Fulham for around £15m plus add-ons. According to Moyes, the Frenchman had neglected to make himself available for the visit of City and so has now been shipped to Fulham where he hopes to get more game time.
By selling him for 15m, the Hammers have managed to recoup a sizable portion of the £22m fee they paid to sign the defender from Toulouse four years ago.
