West Ham United will make midfielder Manuel Lanzini's season-long loan from Al Jazira Club in the United Arab Emirates a permanent deal two months earlier than planned, co-chairman David Sullivan has said.
Lanzini, who is currently sidelined with a thigh injury, has scored four times in his 12 Premier League appearances this season.
“The contract we have is 100 percent watertight. We have until April to make it permanent but we’ll probably do it before the due date,” said Sullivan, who is also a film producer and was speaking at an event to publicise his latest project.
“He is a fantastic player and a fantastic man. By February or March, he will be a permanent West Ham player.
“He could be a top, top, top player. He’s already sensational and he could be as good as any player in the world.”
Sullivan also heaped praise on injured midfielder Dimitri Payet, who has gained many admirers for some eye-catching performances for the Hammers, having been directly involved in nine goals in his 12 league appearances.
“Payet is the signing of the season. He’s the best player I’ve signed in 25 years. He’s a £30 million player,” Sullivan said of a player signed for an undisclosed eight-figure fee from French side Marseille.
“He’s a supreme footballer. He makes every player in our side play better. On his day, he’s world class, he’s unstoppable.”
The 66-year-old revealed he approached several high-profile managers as a replacement for Sam Allardyce but was content with the appointment of Slaven Bilic during the close-season.
“We were two hours from getting (Rafael) Benitez and then Real came in. We had agreed a contract and everything,” Sullivan said.
“He is a top manager whatever anybody says and I think he’d have done a wonderful job for us.
“We tried (Juergen) Klopp as well but he wouldn’t come because he said he wanted a break. But I’m glad with the manager we have got.”
West Ham, who are 10th in the league, will look to return to winning ways after four successive draws in Monday’s league clash with 12th-placed Southampton.
Meanwhile Sunderland will look for overseas recruits during the January transfer window, primarily to tighten their leaky backline, manager Sam Allardyce has said ahead of Wednesday's Premier League encounter with Liverpool.
The Black Cats have already shipped 37 goals in 18 games this campaign, the most in the league, and four successive league losses has left them second from bottom in the table, five points adrift of safety.
“Probably, it‘ll have to be from abroad, by the looks of what‘s about and available in this country,“ Allardyce told British media.
“I think it would be very difficult to secure a player from any club in the Premier League because I don‘t think they‘d want to let anybody go,“ he added.
“So, for me, it looks like it might be from abroad, and then see where we go from there.
“We‘ve got to get back to being a resilient defensive unit... but the backline and the goalkeeper have to be the ones that ultimately secure those clean sheets, so a defender‘s my first priority, a central defender.
“Then we‘ll move on from there. Whether we can find one good enough is another matter.”
