Long-term Newcastle United target Kalvin Phillips on the verge of joining West Ham

Manchester City reject Kalvin Phillips looks to finally be close to leaving his City hell by joining West Ham United this month.

Newcastle United have long been rumoured to be interested in Kalvin Phillips and in December it was widely reported that a deal was in place for the England midfielder to join in January.

Clearly, those reports were wide of the mark as Newcastle never even looked close to taking Phillips away from Manchester this month, especially when it came out that City wanted £7million just for a loan.

Where's the £7million loan fee for West Ham?

West Ham will take the 28-year-old on loan for the rest of the season and will cover his £140k-a-week wages according to The Guardian.

Sky Sports have reported that there will be an option to buy for West Ham too but there's no mention on Sky Sports or The Guardian of a £7million fee. Sky also claim that the deal is far from done and other interested parties could still scupper the deal.

This once again goes to hammer home just how much the rumour mill is not to be trusted especially when it's ITKs leading the charge.

Newcastle tend to do business away from the media

Newcastle's biggest transfers under the new ownership have mostly all come out of the blue. Sandro Tonali pretty much happened overnight after weeks of speculation about us signing Nicolo Barella.

The club have been very good at making us look one way while doing something behind our backs, and quite often when a player has been linked for a long time, it's just been media noise. The exceptions being Sven Botman and Anthony Gordon.

It still remains to be seen if we will actually do any business this month but time is running out.