‘Maybe I shouldn’t say that’: Journalist says West Ham could’ve signed £40m player before he was a star

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Jacque Talbot has been discussing Kim Min-Jae’s future at Napoli and how the South Korean defender could have signed for West Ham United.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Talbot claimed that an agent told him that David Moyes wanted to sign the defender for West Ham back when he was playing in China, but the Hammers decided against the deal because they thought it was too big a risk to sign a player from a league they didn’t know much about.

Since then, Kim has gone on to establish himself as one of Europe’s top defenders with Napoli and is set to win a league title this season.

West Ham could’ve had Kim

Talbot shared what he knows about the £40m star.

“They signed him from Fenerbahce for £15m, and do you know what actually. I got a message from an agent, should I say this? Anyway, David Moyes had an interest in him back when he was in the Chinese Super League but they thought it was too big of a gamble coming from a market they had no knowledge of, maybe I shouldn’t say that,” Talbot said.

Missed out

It’s fair to say that West Ham made a big mistake here.

However, we can excuse it because, in all honesty, it is difficult to tell a player’s quality from a stint in China. After all, that league is not at the same standard as the Premier League.

It would’ve been a massive gamble to bring in a defender from the Chinese league, especially at a time when West Ham were looking to push on and attack the top four.

West Ham did make a mistake here, but it’s hard to blame them too much for this one.