West Ham: £22m star could be 'surplus to requirements' at London Stadium

West Ham defender Issa Diop could find himself “surplus to requirements” if the club complete a deal for Nayef Aguerd, according to Sky Sports reporter Dharmesh Sheth.

Rennes centre-back Aguerd looks to be heading to the London Stadium, and this may see Diop, who joined West Ham for £22m in 2018, slip further down the pecking order under David Moyes.

As reported by the Daily Star, Aguerd has flown in from France this week to undergo a medical at West Ham prior to completing his move to the east London outfit.

However, the same report states that Newcastle are also showing interest in the 26-year-old, and they could look to hijack the deal.

West Ham still look to be in pole position to sign Aguerd, but there remains a chance that he could opt to join their Premier League rivals instead.

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If Aguerd does finalise his move to West Ham, Sheth thinks this could be bad news for Diop as he cannot see how the 6 foot 5 defender would get into Moyes’s team moving forward.

Sheth told GIVEMESPORT: “If and when Aguerd does join, I just wonder what that would mean to the future of Issa Diop because he was being used as cover for the other two defenders as it stood. If they bring in someone for big money, he’d be expected to play straight away. So, I just wonder whether Diop would be surplus to requirements.”

It is hard to see him getting regular game time next season if Aguerd joins.

Even without Aguerd, Diop was not part of Moyes’s first-choice centre-back pairing last term, as the West Ham boss often turned to Craig Dawson and Kurt Zouma, while Angelo Ogbonna was also a regular starter prior to his serious knee injury which ruled him out for the majority of the