West Ham United are interested in a deal to bring Calum Chambers to the London Stadium on transfer deadline day.
What’s the talk?
That’s according to a report by the Daily Mail (via West Ham Zone), who claim that David Moyes is looking to add cover at centre-back to his current Hammers squad over the final hours of the January transfer window, with the 59-year-old believed to have identified the Aston Villa defender as a last-minute target.
This would appear to back up a claim made by Dean Jones in a recent column for GIVEMESPORT, with the transfer insider also suggesting that the Irons are plotting a deadline day swoop for the 28-year-old.
“Outstanding”
While it is true that Chambers has somewhat struggled to hold down a regular spot in the Villa XI following his £8.5m move to the club back in January last year, with Craig Dawson having recently departed east London in a move to Wolverhampton Wanderers, it is not difficult to see why Moyes would be keen on a last-minute swoop for the former Arsenal defender.
Indeed, despite his lack of game-time, the £9m-rated talent still managed to impress over his 13 Premier League outings last season, helping his side to keep three clean sheets, in addition to making an average of 1.6 tackles, 0.4 interceptions, 3.8 clearances and winning 4.0 duels – at a success rate of 53% – per game.
The £50k-per-week Englishman also caught the eye going forwards last time out, hitting the back of the net once, as well as enjoying an average of 54.3 touches, making 0.4 key passes, playing 2.7 long balls and completing 35.6 total passes – at a success rate of 83% – per match.
These returns saw the player who The Independent’s Tom Peck once dubbed “irrepressible” and legendary Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger previously labelled “outstanding” average an extremely impressive Sofascore statistical rating of 6.90, ranking him as Villa’s seventh-best performer in the top flight in the 2021/22 campaign.
Furthermore, the former England international’s incredible positional versatility is another major positive, with Unai Emery stating of the 28-year-old after a 5-0 win over Nottingham Forest in 2019: “He helped us in the training, in the dressing room and when you need him to play right-back, centre-back, left-back like tonight, and we can use him in the midfield also. His performance is starting with his attitude and his attitude is amazing.
“After that is his best position, but tonight for example I was telling him, when he was playing left back, be calm here, help and support Bukayo [Saka], give the ball to Dani Ceballos and he was overlapping a lot of times with Bukayo! He did one very good pass for the goal with [Reiss] Nelson. He didn’t listen to me!”
As such, considering his proven Premier League ability and his capability to play in a number of different positions in defence and midfield, it would indeed appear as if Chambers’ late arrival on transfer deadline day would be an outstanding deal for Moyes to pull off – especially with a Dawson-shaped hole to fill at the back for West Ham.
