Bellingham-esque £40m star is now West Ham’s top target

Will West Ham United be busy in the remaining weeks of the transfer window?

Their supporters and Graham Potter alike will certainly hope so.

So far, the Hammers have brought in both Callum Wilson and Kyle Walker-Peters on free transfers, also spending a reported £19m to sign El Hadji Malick Diouf from Slavia Prague.

Nevertheless, a lot more needs to be done if the Irons are going to improve on last season’s 14th place finish, so could they be about to make a splash in the market?

West Ham’s need for firepower

The most noteworthy transfer from West Ham’s summer so far, sadly for them, is an outgoing, with Mohammed Kudus controversially sold to fierce rivals Tottenham Hotspur for a reported fee of £55m.

Kudus scored 19 goals and registered 13 assists during 80 appearances for the Irons, winning the Europa League goal of the season award for this stunning sole effort against Freiburg in 2023/24, so the Ghanaian leaves a rather large void at the London Stadium.

As they seek to replace him, Daniel Feliciano and Dean Jones of Give Me Sport report that Aston Villa’s Jacob Ramsey remains West Ham’s ‘top target’, willing to spend £30m to secure the signature of a 24-year-old they label a ‘dynamic midfield player’.

Well, Mark Brus of Caught Offside claims that Ramsey is valued at closer to £43m by the Villans, with Nottingham Forest and Tottenham also interested, the latter in the race after it was confirmed on Thursday that James Maddison had suffered a long-term anterior cruciate ligament rupture during a pre-season friendly in Seoul.

Speaking on the Guardian Football Weekly podcast, Dan Bardell notes that Aston Villa will almost certainly need to sell a “big player” to comply with the Premier League’s Profitability & Sustainability rules this summer, thereby suggesting Ramsey could be sacrificed, so could he swap Villa Park for East London?

What Jacob Ramsey would bring to West Ham

Ramsey joined Aston Villa at the age of six, making his senior debut for the club against Midlands rivals West Bromwich Albion in the EFL Championship in February 2019; Villa have come along way since then!

Overall, he’s accumulated 17 goals and 19 assists for the club in 167 appearances, bagging six Premier League goals during both the 2021/22 and 2022/23 campaigns, his progress blighted by various injuries more recently.

Nevertheless, David Astill of Total Football Analysis praises his versatility and ability to create from numerous positions on the pitch, while Joseph Odell of Breaking the Lines is impressed by his ‘brilliant footballing intelligence’ as well as his ball-carrying ability and capacity to ’cause chaos’.

So, let’s compare him to the player he could be replacing at West Ham, Kudus.

As the table outlines, despite playing around 500 fewer minutes across all competitions, Ramsey’s statistics were, pretty much, more impressive than those of Kudus across the board last season.

The Englishman provided more assists and created exponentially more chances and big chances, as well as completing a significantly higher proportion of his take-ons.

What is also made clear is the fact that the duo are, stylistically, quite different, with Kudus liking to operate high and wide, while Ramsey is more of a box-crashing central player.

One player he is similar to is a certain Jude Bellingham, who was born just 18 miles west across the Midlands. That likeness has been noted by journalist Ryan Taylor, who said Ramsey is of “similar ilk” to his Real Madrid-based compatriot. With that in mind, let’s compare this pair.

As the table underlines, while Bellingham’s percentiles are, for the most part, higher than Ramsey’s, they’re both all-action midfielders who contribute all over the pitch.

Ramsey ranks higher for progressive carries, percentage of successful take-ons and ball recoveries, simply needing to increase his attacking output to be on-par with one of the world’s very best midfielders.

With that in mind, he would represent a massive coup for West Ham, if they’re able to convince him to join.