Slaven Bilic has denied that West Ham are looking to sign Galatasaray and Turkish striker Burak Yilmaz, according to Turkish news outlet Son.tv.
Bilic, who has admitted that West Ham are in the market for another striker, has said that the Turkish International will not be the player he will sign, despite his impressive goalscoring record for Galatasaray where he scored 57 goals in 87 games in the Turkish top flight.
Bilic said: “Burak is both one of Galatasaray and Turkey’s most important strikers. He is among the players I like. But as of right now Burak is not on my agenda.”
Rumours were fuelled at the weekend when Galatasaray left Yilmaz, who has scored 16 goals in 40 games for his country, on the bench for Galatasaray’s opening day loss against Sivasspor as he was overlooked for new signing Lukas Podolski, however Galatasaray manager Hamza Hamzaoglu said that Yilmaz was benched for tactical reasons rather than because of interest from the Hammers.
West Ham have been linked with many strikers these past couple of weeks, including Charlie Austin and Javier Hernandez as well as some other recurring names, but the Hammers did reportedly make a €10million approach for 30-year-old Yilmaz, who’s powerful play earned him a lot of plaudits in his home country, one of his admirers being former Besiktas manager Slaven Bilic.
