£40m Newcastle target now looks to be on the move but won't be coming to Tyneside

Newcastle United look set to miss out on yet another defensive target after West Ham United look set to win the duel for 27-year-old centre-back.

It wasn't too long ago that Newcastle had reportedly approached Wolverhampton Wanderers with a part-exchange offer for their captain Max Kilman which would have seen Elliot Anderson going the other way.

That seemed to be the writing on the wall for Anderson who departed the club on Sunday to join Nottingham Forest.

Meanwhile, Newcastle didn't seem to return to Wolves with an improved offer for Kilman despite knowing that West Ham were already in the frame after having had a £25million bid rejected a day or so Newcastle made their approach.

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Wolves had reportedly set an asking price of £40million for Kilman which West Ham have now met.

The BBC reports that the Hammers are now on the verge of completing a deal for Kilman who has flirted with an England call-up in recent seasons without ever actually making it into one of Gareth Southgate's squads.

New West Ham boss Julien Lopetegui had a spell as Wolves boss too and will be familiar with Kilman and may have been a big influence on the defender's decision.

Kilman was another name linked with Newcastle that hardly got Geordie pulses racing, so there'll not be too many fans crying into their Brown Ale tonight seeing this one pass us by.

As we said before, now that Paul Mitchell has joined the club we expect there'll be new focus by our recruitment team and a whole host of new links could start appearing soon.

Hopefully, the focus remains on Malick Thiaw from AC Milan who looks increasingly likely to be on the move this summer.