West Ham United are closing in on a deal to bring Dan-Axel Zagadou to the London Stadium.
What’s the talk?
That’s according to Pedro Almeida, with the Portuguese transfer insider revealing in a recent post on Twitter that, after being heavily linked with a move for the former Borussia Dortmund centre-back this summer, West Ham are now in talks with the 23-year-old defender and his representatives regarding a move to east London on a free transfer.
In his tweet, the journalist said:
“Zagadou [to] West Ham. English club is in direct talks with [the] French player’s agent.”
“Unbelievable”
While it is true that Zagadou has seen his career stagnate somewhat as a result of a series of unfortunate injuries in recent years, should David Moyes believe that the former France U21 international is now over the worst of his setbacks, the 23-year-old would undoubtedly be something of an unbelievable signing on a free.
Indeed, after joining Dortmund from Paris Saint-Germain back in the summer of 2017, the £8.1m-rated talent highly impressed over his 17 Bundesliga appearances in 2018/29, helping his side keep five clean sheets, as well as making an average of 1.5 interceptions, 0.8 tackles, 4.1 clearances and winning 4.6 duels – at a success rate of 67% – per game.
The £35k-per-week defender also demonstrated his ability with the ball at his feet, scoring two goals, in addition to enjoying an average of 71.8 touches of the ball, completing 53.8 passes – at a success rate of 88% – finding his man with 3.2 long balls and completing 0.8 dribbles – at a 100% success rate – per fixture.
It was a similar story over the 23-year-old’s 15 league outings in 2019/20, once again helping his side keep five clean sheets and scoring one goal, as well as making an average of one interception, 1.1 tackles, completing 50.3 passes, 4.1 long balls, 0.4 dribbles and winning 3.9 duels – at a success rate of 72% – per game.
These returns saw the player, who Julian Brandt dubbed “unbelievable“, average an extremely impressive SofaScore match rating of 7.25, ranking him as Dortmund’s sixth-best performer in the top flight of German football that season.
As such, with Zagadou evidently being a defender who is incredibly strong in duels, excellent in his reading of the game and extremely talented when in possession of the ball, the signing of the former French youth international on a free would most certainly look to be an unbelievable piece of business for Moyes to get over the line in the coming days.
