West Ham United are interested in signing Konstantinos Mavropanos after he joins VfB Stuttgart on a permanent deal this summer, according to a report.

Though technically still an Arsenal player, Konstantinos Mavropanos won’t be playing for the Gunners beyond this summer.

The defender is on loan with VfB Stuttgart, and as reported in March, they’ll activate their purchase clause to sign him when they have the chance. They’ve decided to sign him even if they get relegated.

The fee will be €3m, or £3m, depending on which source you believe. Kicker (via GGFN) claim West Ham are then ready to pay a fee of just under €25m to sign him.

Arsenal have already received a loan fee for Mavropanos, and they’ll also earn 10% of his future sale. So the total fees received by the Gunners might end up being around €7-8m.

All the same, Arsenal clearly could have made more by leaving out the purchase clause in his loan this season and then selling him directly to West Ham this summer.

Mavropanos has had a busy season, playing 30 games for Stuttgart, but it’s debatable whether it’s been a good campaign.

Clearly, the defender has raised his own stock, but Stuttgart are in 16th – the Bundesliga relegation play-off place.

They’re four points behind the team above them with just three games remaining and a good chance they could even slip into the automatic relegation places.

Stuttgart have the fourth-worst defensive record in the league, and Mavropanos has given away four penalties for club and country this season.

The general consensus is that Mavropanos isn’t at fault for Stuttgart’s position, and he’s been a positive in their struggling side. His five goals have probably helped with that perception, albeit that he hasn’t scored for well over four months now.

It’s going to be interesting to see how he performs in a team with higher expectations though, and we may well be about to find out.