Newcastle & West Ham to battle for exciting Bundesliga star as Arsenal get €40m striker ‘boost’

The weekend is finally with us, but while we all put our collective feet up and slowly work our way through the hangover, the rumour mill continues to churn – and to help you keep up-to-date, we’re here once more with our daily round-up of the biggest new Premier League transfer stories.

Today, we’re going to start with a story from Germany, relayed to us via Sport Witness, which concerns fans of Newcastle United and West Ham, both of whom are alleged to be keen on Bayer Leverkusen striker Victor Boniface.

This comes from journalist Christian Falk originally and he claims that Newcastle are the “hottest candidate” of the two to get a deal over the line, but is also contradicted by his own newspaper, Bild, who separately insist that Newcastle and Leverkusen haven’t had any conversations about the 24-year-old, who nearly moved to Saudi Arabia in January. No word on a price tag, but apparently Newcastle would “double his wages”, which can’t do their case any harm.

The 3AM Verdict: Pick your poison, really – either Newcastle are dead keen on Boniface or haven’t even considered him, depending on which Bild journalist you want to believe. Presumably one of them is right. There’s less detail about West Ham’s alleged interest, so we’d assume it’s more a case of his being on a relatively long shortlist rather than a priority.

Arsenal get striker ‘boost’ as price tag drops

Down to the Emirates now, where Arsenal have been “handed a transfer boost” – according to Caught Offside – with the news that Juventus have dropped their asking price for striker Dušan Vlahović to just €40m (£33.1m), a figure which could tempt the Gunners into making a bid given that they are “huge admirers” of the Serb.

The article notes that Arsenal have a long list of options at centre-forward, ranging from the names we know all about (Alexander Isak and Viktor Gyökeres) to one we’re more surprised by in the shape of Moise Kean. But Vlahović’s reduced fee could tip the balance in his favour as Arsenal work to finally find the striker they’ve needed for the last couple of seasons.

The 3AM Verdict: This is an old rumour, so the question is whether the reduced price tag is right and whether it would be enough to persuade Arsenal to tighten their belts and sign a player who has never really hit the heights at Juventus. We’ll find out in the summer, we suppose.

Potter targets former Chelsea star

We’ll finish up today’s column with a line from Give Me Sport which brings us back to West Ham – apparently, the Hammers are among “several” Premier League clubs keen on bringing striker Tammy Abraham back to England following the end of his loan spell at AC Milan, which has so far produced eight goals in 33 appearances.

Potter and his transfer team are “keeping tabs” on the AS Roma loanee, who is claimed to be eyeing a return to England so he can force his way into the reckoning for Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad next year. There aren’t any financial details mentioned, but Abraham is seen as unlikely to make a permanent move to Milan given that they signed Santiago Giménez last month.

The 3AM Verdict: Injuries have played a part in a frustrating couple of seasons for Abraham, who shone when he first moved to Italy but has struggled for consistency since. A move back to England makes sense, but whether West Ham are really interested is unclear – as the Boniface story we started with makes clear, they’re monitoring a lot of centre-forwards ahead of the summer as they look to find the answer to a question they’ve been asking for a few years now.