West Ham United have placed a roughly $108 million (\u00a380 million) valuation on 21-year-old Mateus Fernandes as Arsenal and Manchester United feature among the reported suitors. The Times have revealed that Arsenal and Man Utd are among the front-runners for the 21-year-old\u2019s signature, last season\u2019s Premier League title winners having “expressed an interest” as Mikel Arteta seeks to build a dynasty. Aston Villa\u2019s Morgan Rogers is also on Arsenal\u2019s radar.<\/p>\n
West Ham say they do not want to sell, but the club may be forced to in order to comply with financial regulations. Demotion to the second tier would worsen their negotiating leverage. Fernandes was signed last summer for $51 million and could now command more than double that fee.<\/p>\n
Statistically Fernandes presents a mixed but promising profile. He has two seasons of Premier League experience, emerging with Southampton and West Ham during relegation campaigns. For West Ham he recorded three goals and four assists in the league. More revealing are his underlying numbers: he led the Hammers for accurate passes per 90 and created 37 chances, a total only behind Jarrod Bowen\u2019s 45 at the club.<\/p>\n
Defensively he is industrious. Fernandes averaged 11 defensive contributions per 90, with only two West Ham players ahead of him, and picked up seven bookings. He matched Casemiro at 3.1 tackles per 90 and registered 369 overall defensive contributions, a figure bettered by only 10 players in the division, one of whom was Declan Rice.<\/p>\n
Creatively Fernandes remains raw. He produced three big chances for West Ham, a number lower than 131 other Premier League players last season, and much of the club\u2019s set-piece output came via Jarrod Bowen. That said, his passing range and willingness to press out of possession suggest he can be shaped into either a box-to-box midfielder or a more attacking creator under the right coaching.<\/p>\n
For Arsenal and Man Utd the decision will hinge on potential versus price. Both clubs face alternative midfield targets, and the logic of signing Fernandes will depend on whether his ceiling justifies the reported $108m fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
West Ham value Mateus Fernandes at $108m as Arsenal and Man Utd circle; is he worth the fee? Read…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1083,969],"tags":[1162,1637,1553],"class_list":["post-14190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-assists","tag-bookings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}