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Forest face possible hitch in completing transfer PL man – report

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Newly appointed boss West Bromwich Albion boss Slaven Bilic is obviously hoping to use his connections at his former club, but this has taken a bit of a weird twist.

According to Nottinghamshire Live, West Ham United are the ones instigating the move in their attempts to sign forward Salomon Rondon. They’re offering the Midlands side £10m plus former Forest loanee Sam Byram and forward Jordan Hugill as part of the deal, although the move has been rejected.

Sam Byram who was signed on a season-long loan by Aitor Karanka last year, but suffered a terrible injury in their 3-1 victory over Newcastle in the Carabao Cup back in August that ruled him out for a huge chunk of the season. He did eventually make a comeback in early April though, and managed to get through the ninety minutes in five of the last six games of the season.

This is a huge transfer for Nottingham Forest for the upcoming season. With Saidy Janko’s loan move at an end, the only player they have to play right-back is Tendayi Darikwa, and with him on African Cup Of Nations duty, we can’t be certain that he’ll either be fully rested by the time the start of the season rolls around, or that he’ll come out of the tournament injury free.

So they need to sign a right back either permanently or on another loan deal.

Martin O’Neill clearly has faith in Sam Bryam to be a useful right back, otherwise he wouldn’t have given him game time towards the end of last season when the playoff race was over. The fact that West Ham are offering up Sam Byram as a counterweight with West Bromwich Albion to get the Rondon deal done shows you that they don’t want him at the club anymore, so now is the time to strike.

He’s clearly a fantastic player at this level, demonstrated by when he won Leeds’ player of the season award back in 2013, with performances that got him his move to the Premier League with West Ham in the first place.

Currently valued at £3.15m, is a steal in this day and age for a dependable player of his calibre. If he gets a full season under his belt, not hampered by injuries this time around he can be a crucial part of Nottingham Forest’s plans next season, but they can’t afford to dawdle over it, otherwise he’ll only come back and haunt them if he goes to another promotion rival.

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