We’re in to the final month of the transfer window and after a serious injury to Enner Valencia, we’re even more desperate for another striker than already were.

As a result the transfer rumours are beginning to hot up a little bit as the club scramble to find someone capable of playing alongside Diafra Sakho and getting the goals we need to ensure our final season at the Boleyn Ground is a success.

Over the last few days we’ve been linked with a number of strikers, with two names of note regularly getting the headlines.

It’s no secret that we’re interested in both Charlie Austin and Javier Hernandez and if reports are to be believed, they’re both going to cost a similar fee – something in the region of £12m to £12m.

To go along with the transfer rumours, there have several other little snippets of new surrounding the club doing the rounds, which have made it a pretty busy day where the club is concerned.

So here’s everything you need to know about the club after today’s headlines. Enjoy…

CLICK HERE FOR TODAY’S BIG HEADLINES

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Hernandez boost?

Unless you’ve been asleep all day you’ll know we’ve reportedly followed up our rejected £9million bid for Man United striker Javier Hernandez with an improved £11.9m offer.

We wouldn’t expect anything less from the club where a striker of the Mexican’s calibre is concerned, but reports following that are perhaps even more encouraging.

In an attempt to force a move away from the club, Hernandez is thought to be willing to waive his right to any bonus payments tied in to the last year of his United contract.

He’s supposedly asking the Red Devils to consider bids for as little as £6million as he gets even more desperate to find a new club that’ll give him the first team opportunities he craves.

So hopefully we can use this to our advantage and get him in claret and blue sooner rather than later.
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Hammers to force Austin deal?

So we all know that the club are baulking at QPR’s £15m valuation of striker Charlie Austin. We’ve counteracted that with a £12m plus Matty Jarvis bid, but QPR still aren’t budging.

Now it’s reporting that the board will give in to QPR’s demands and just pay the asking price in order to get their man, which would be a wise move if you ask me.

That’s nothing new, though. What is new, however, is Lee Bowyer piping up on talkSPORT and said Austin should choose to sign for Newcastle instead of us. There is method in his madness though, and he backs his opinion up by saying competition for places once Andy Carroll returns from injury may work against him, while at Newcastle the only competiton he has up front is Pappis Cisse, who wants out of the club.

But apparently Austin wants to stay in London and, should we get to the group stages, the opportunity to play in the Europa League will surely be too good to turn down, especially with the European Championships coming up next summer.

Still undecided about which one of the two you want? Our friends over at FootballFanCast.com have weighed up the pros and cons and come to a conclusion.

Read their analysis here.
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Please no!

And if the previous two deals for Hernandez and Austin don’t come off, reports today reckon we’ll turn to Hull’s Nikica Jelavic…

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We're now being linked with Jelavic…let's just hope lazy journalists have gone for the Croatian link

— Forever West Ham (@Forever_WestHam) August 4, 2015

As our friends at Forever West Ham say, let’s just hope it’s the Croatia link that has had journalists scrambling for meaningless transfer rumours on a slow news day (trust me, this happens).

Jelavic is too injury prone for us to be even considering signing him, and we should definitely look elsewhere should we fail with our top targets.
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Weakened team?

It’s being rumoured that Slaven Bilic is going to field a weakened XI to face FC Astra in Romania on Thursday.

With our opening game of the Premier League season against Arsenal on Sunday coming just three days later, you can understand Bilic’s thoughts behind ensuring we’ve got a decent enough squad fit and ready to start our league campaign.

But surely, if we’re taking the Europa League seriously, we’ll be playing Thursday-Sunday schedules regularly throughout the season, which means this is the perfect opportunity for us to get the players used to such a schedule.

Yes we’ve got injuries and suspensions to contend with already, but you can’t expect the youngsters to go out to Romania and get us through to the next round of the qualifiers just so we can face Arsenal with a stronger team. The chances of us beating Arsenal are pretty slim anyway, so you’d be more inclined to go for it in both games to see exactly where the squad’s at?

Only time will tell, of course, but if it is weakened team on Thursday then there’ll be no excuse that makes sense. Even if we do win. Not for me, anyway.
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The fans have spoken…

Last week we teamed up with our friends at FootballFanCast.com to ask Hammers fans which of the players currently linked with club they want the most.

Today they published the results and they’re  quite surprising.

Alex Song comes in at four fn the top five. But who’s number one?

Click here to read the results over at FootballFanCast.com.
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And finally…

In the extremely pointless Betway Cup on Sunday, we welcomed Bundesliga outfit Werder Bremen to the Boleyn Ground.

We lost 2-1 despite taking the lead (surprise, surprise). The results doesn’t matter, though. What does matter, is the brilliance of Bremen’s aways support.

A Hammers fan videoed the travelling German’s singing a wonderful rendition of Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall.’

Amazing.

Oh, and before you go, if you player Fantasy Premier League then make sure you join our league. Use the code below…

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