West Ham confident of shattering club transfer record for new midfielder

West Ham have received a huge boost in talks for Sporting midfielder William Carvalho and hope to conclude a new club-record move within the next week, claims The Daily Mirror. 

Carvalho has emerged as a top transfer target for the Hammers in the remaining weeks of the transfer window, but there were reservations whether they would be able to pull off a deal for the Portugal international given how notoriously difficult Sporting are to negotiate with.

Slaven Bilic’s side had a club-record £27.1m bid for Carvalho rejected last week but are confident of bridging the gap between their valuation and Sporting’s by including a string of performance-related incentives.

The 25-year-old has been regularly linked with a Premier League move in recent years and came very close to joining West Brom 12 months ago before talks between the clubs broke down.

West Ham have already broken their club transfer record to sign Mark Arnautovic this summer and are now on track to break it for a second time after Carvalho was left out of Sporting’s squad for their 1-0 win over Setubal on Saturday.

Since the start of last season, Carvalho has won possession in the midfield third more times than any other Liga NOS player (173), while only Benfica ace Pizzi (2164) has made more accurate passes than Carvalho (2065).