West Ham United’s pursuit of a new striker is never-ending.

The club have been in the market for one ever since the sale of Sebastien Haller to Ajax and it feels as though there are links with new forwards almost every day.

A move for Bournemouth striker Joshua King has been mooted relatively recently.

The Sun reported earlier this week that the club have had a £13m bid rejected and are now considering an offer worth £16m.

That is despite a run of relatively poor form from the Norway international, who has failed to score in 11 Championship games thus far this term, while he also has a contract that expires this summer.

And the club have now been warned off a move by former Premier League star Noel Whelan, who believes that the club could be in danger of being ripped off.

Speaking to Football Insider, he claimed Bournemouth could be trying to take advantage of the Hammers’ desperation to sign a striker.

He said: “I think so, yeah, I think they’re trying to see how badly they want him.

“Look, he’s out of contract, he could very easily sign a pre-contract abroad right now and they get nothing, so they need to be very careful and sensible on what they’re asking for. In my opinion, if they got £10million for him, they should be happy, because £10million is better than nothing.

“At £16million, that’s a lot of money to pay for a player that you can actually wait for, be in discussions with already now, and he can ride it out – he’d be a lot richer, being a free agent, that’s for sure, and West Ham will be saving £16million they could spend elsewhere.

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“I think Bournemouth need to be realistic about this and sensible because I’m pretty sure six months will fly by and during that time he could just make a decision himself going: ‘You know what? I’ll actually wait, I’ll go and join West Ham at the end of the season.’

“It’s one of those where you need to be very careful and sensible but £16million? No, I’d be going: ‘If you’re going to be giving that kind of price tag on a player that has got six months left, probably four months of football, we’ll wait and then we’ll take him for nothing.'” 

GIVEMESPORT’S Harry Sherlock says…

Whelan is absolutely bang on, here.

West Ham don’t have a lot of money to spend and lavishing £16m on a player who is available for nothing in the summer makes next to no sense whatsoever.

When one adds in that King isn’t scoring freely in the second-tier, either, it becomes apparent that this is exactly the type of move the Hammers should be swerving.

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They would be best served trying to find a loanee who could arrive this month, and then, potentially, find a senior striker in the summer.

That makes the most sense.