West Ham’s Slaven Bilic: Manchester City striker Wilfried Bony is ‘an option’

Slaven Bilic has confirmed Manchester City's Wilfried Bony is a transfer
option for West Ham as they look to bolster their attacking ranks.
West Ham have made no secret of wanting to bring in a forward, with the
club's record signing André Ayew ruled out for up to four months after
injuring his thigh on his debut at Chelsea.
Andy Carroll is also sidelined with a knee
problem sustained in the 1-1 draw at Astra
Giurgiu in the first leg of their Europa
League play-off last week. The second leg
is at the London Stadium on Thursday.
Bony has struggled for playing time since
his £25m move to Manchester City in 2015 and was recently omitted
from Pep Guardiola's Champions League squad for the qualifier against
Steaua Bucharest.
Bilic said: "Bony is a good player. He is an option because he plays in the
position where, even before the injuries, we tried to sign a player – he is
a centre-forward. I don't negotiate. I'm just the manager. I just say to the
chairmen and [chief scout] Tony Henry, we talk and then they do it."
The Juventus striker Simone Zaza is also a target of Bilic. He would not
be drawn on whether a deal for the Italy international was close but again
stressed the importance of bringing in more attacking players. Zaza's
father was quoted on Tuesday as saying the player is "seriously
considering" a move to West Ham.
"I'm not going to tell you the details, but we have been linked with Zaza
last year also, last summer," he said. "He's a top player and I like him. I
was here last year so it tells you everything and we were in contact with
him last year – it didn't happen. We will see if it does this year in the
next few days.
"We have a couple of players that we are going to try to do a deal for. But
we are in the period that a lot of our players, especially the offensive
players, are out injured.
"Some of them long term, some of them short term, and now in this very
moment we're going to be short of numbers and short of quality. But then
after that we have the international break and after that some of them
should be back, so in terms of signings we are not panicking."
The West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan is recuperating after heart
surgery on Tuesday. The 67-year-old's son, David Sullivan Jr, tweeted a
picture of his father lying in his hospital bed on his mobile phone. In his
tweet, Sullivan Jr went on to suggest his father was already back to
negotiating the arrival of new players at West Ham, with the transfer
window closing in a week's time.
"Dad has just had heart surgery, woke up from operation and is straight
back on the phone to sign more players," he said.