West Ham have been linked with a move for 23-year-old Celtic midfielder Olivier Ntcham, as they look to add to their squad before the transfer window slams shut.
The Hammers on Wednesday confirmed the signing of Tomáš Souček on loan from SK Slavia Prague on loan with an option to buy, should they avoid relegation. The club is now looking to strengthen the squad further, and have now turned their attentions to Frenchmen Olivier Ntcham according to Foot Mercato.
Ntcham could be a fantastic signing for a poor West Ham team. The 23-year-old has struggled for game time for the Scottish giants but has usually impressed when he has played. The Frenchman has made 32 appearances, scoring six goals and assisting one in all competitions, a decent return for a midfielder.
In fact, Ntcham has outscored every West Ham midfielder this season, despite his limited playing time. Ntcham is a very well rounded player, his main strength is playing dangerous through balls. This skill will be welcomed at West Ham, the current team is lacking creativity due to the poor form of Manuel Lanzini, Moyes’ refusal to start Pablos Fornals and injuries to Andriy Yarmolenko and Felipe Anderson.
West Ham could certainly find multiple uses for Ncthem, he is a very consistent passer of the ball. According to Whoscored.com, he averages 80.4% accurate passes per game. That is marginally behind Captain Mark Noble, however, Ncthem makes up for this by more than doubling Noble’s shooting. Mr. West Ham averages 0.7 shots per game, whereas the Frenchman averages 1.8 shots per game. So arguably West Ham will have a higher chance of goals from open play with Ntcham rather than Noble in the midfield, or at least having more shots at the opposition goal.
One issue with this transfer is that Celtic manager, Neil Lennon, does not want to lose his utility man. The Scotsman has called the rumors “nonsense” according to the Belfast Telegraph, he also dismissed the rumors as “agent talk”. So if David Moyes has any hope of signing the ex-city player, then West Ham will have to fork out a lot more than the £4.5 million he is valued at on TransferMarket.