Hammers unruffled by takeover talk

West Ham manager Alan Pardew has pledged not to let his players become distracted by takeover talk as they start their countdown to a new season back in the Premiership.

Reports have surfaced of a £70m (€100.5m) takeover prospect fronted by a London-based Iranian-born businessman who was recently involved in weighing up a move for Sir John Hall’s shares at Newcastle United.

Kia Joorabchian is thought to be behind a plan by Media Sports Investments who controversially purchased the ownership of top Brazilian club Corinthians last year.

He is now believed to be interested in making an offer to Hammers some time early in the new year but there is no certainty that the East End club’s chairman Terry Brown will sell.

Pardew, who steered Hammers back into the top flight via the play-offs in May, was handed a £20m (€28.8m) transfer budget for the new campaign and has so far bought seven players.

He is still on the lookout for a new striker after failing to land Monaco’s Emmanuel Adevayor and Liverpool’s Milan Baros but believes his squad is still good enough to establish themselves in the top division.

He said: “I have no information on any takeover and I am not really concentrating on that.

“I have to focus on the players we have here now who I rate as good a squad as even Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal in most respects.

“We are back in the top division and all the players have their tails up. We don’t want anything at the moment to take the edge off that.”

Paul Aldridge, West Ham’s chief executive, said: “As a PLC we have very strict guidelines to adhere to as far as talking about takeovers is concerned.

“There are rules about what we can say about what is at the moment still so much speculation. It would be wrong of me to comment on this matter at this stage but if we receive what is deemed a beneficial offer we have a duty to put it to our shareholders and only when that happens will we be able to say more about it.”

Meanwhile, Pardew revealed he has not given up hope of buying at least one more striker in time for the start of the season at home to Blackburn a week tomorrow.

He said: “It was a very frustrating experience with Adevayor because he wanted to come to West Ham and you don’t expect a club like Monaco to keep changing their minds. It’s in the past now but I still want one more, maybe even two more strikers and we have re-targeted our interests.

“In time for next Saturday might be a bit tight but certainly before the end of the August transfer window I want to see some progress.”