Manuel Pellegrini has claimed that he will have the final say other whether the West Ham striker Marko Arnautovic will be permitted to leave the club this window.
Arnautovic, 29, has been the subject of a bid from the Chinese Super League club Shanghai SIPG and his agent and brother Danijel said recently that it’s Marco’s wish to head east ‘challenge for titles’.
But now it’s seems that he might have been stripped of that right after his move has now ‘collapsed’, according to the Sun.
The Austrian is now, according to the same reports, set to be missing from the Hammers squad to face Bournemouth tomorrow as he reels from the breakdown of a move that would have seen him haul in a reported £300,000 per week.
His would-be employers in the Orient have, it’s reported, ‘cooled their interest’ in the player.
His manager, earlier in the day, had insisted that the player’s future was ultimately in his hands.
"If I say the player must stay, the player will stay,” he said.
"I don’t have any problem with the club. In all the months I’ve been working here, I never had any problems with the owners about that. So they are not forcing me to sell Marko Arnautovic.
"But I think, as a manager, the best thing is to take the solution that is best for the player and the club. Both together. If they agree, we don’t have any problem to change."
But now, it would seem, that this Chinese side have put the kibosh on that idea.