West Ham Sunday Gossip

The Mirror claim West Ham will attempt to use Matthew Upson as bait to land Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner (shurley some mishtake). Zola sees Bendtner as the natural replacement for Bellamy who will be moving to City for £15 million this week.

The News of the World disagree and say Aston Villa are in talks with West Ham to sign Matthew Upson for £10m, but the Hammers want £15m for the defender.

West Ham No.2 Steve Clarke disagrees with both of them. Clarke said after yesterday's game,

"I would hope and expect them to still be here this time next week. The January transfer window is there and you have to put up with it. There's going to be a lot of speculation about players coming and going. We come in every day and try and do what we can.

"Gianfranco is in close contact with Scott Duxbury and technical director Gianluca Nani and so we have an opinion on transfers. But the performance showed how committed the players are. We can talk about speculation in the transfer window all day but it's only speculation."

The People say that West Ham have rejected an £8m bid from Chelsea for Swiss international Valon Behrami. But the midfielder, a £5m buy from Lazio last July, is still set to quit Upton Park this summer. Behrami's agent Alessandro Beltrami said: "We have received offers from Chelsea, Juventus and Sevilla. Valon will probably move to a top club during the summer."

Most of the press are also still linking Bellamy and Parker with City.