West Ham United are reported to have accepted a £5m bid from Liverpool for Yossi Benayoun.
The Israeli midfielder - who reneged on signing a new five-year deal with the Hammers last month despite having given his word that he would put pen to paper - is set to sign for Liverpool later this week, should he agree terms and successfully pass a medical (which, given the pitiful number of appearances he made for the Hammers last season, should perhaps not be the formality it usually is).Yossi's agent, Ronan Katsev, is quoted tonight as saying:
"West Ham will always be in his heart but he is looking to move up a level.
"Everybody would be happy to play for Liverpool. [The deal] should be completed in the next 48 hours."
Benayoun - who signed for the Hammers in the summer of 2005 in a £2.5m switch from Spanish outfit Racing Santander - enjoyed an excellent first season for the club, which he capped with a man of the match performance in the 2006 FA Cup Final against the team he is about to join.
However his form last season - his second and seemingly last in East London - was little short of dreadful on the whole, and he was criticised on several occasions for failing to appear for United when an international fixture loomed. All in all he spent nearly a third of the season on the Chadwell Heath treatment table.
Yet despite Benayoun's problems last season it cannot be denied that the club are set to lose possibly the only creative attacking midfielder in the current squad; a situation that will need to be addressed before the new season kicks off in just under a month.
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