Wolves captain Max Kilman is a renewed target for West Ham as Julien Lopetegui lines up reunion with £45m defender

Max Kilman is a renewed target for West Ham with Julen Lopetegui keen to be reunited with the defender he made captain at Wolves.

The centre-back was followed closely by the Hammers last summer but they ultimately never made a formal bid, with Wolves rejecting offers from Napoli before agreeing a new five-year deal with Kilman.

But Lopetegui was a huge admirer of Kilman during his short time at Molineux and would gladly make him a mainstay of the team he hopes to build at the London Stadium. The 27-year-old appeared in all but one of Wolves’ 23 league games under Lopetegui and continued to be a key player when Gary O’Neil replaced the Spaniard less than a week before the start of last season.

Wolves are under no pressure to sell Kilman, who is valued at about £45million. But every Premier League club must now keep one eye on profitability and sustainability regulations (PSR), which permit losses of no more than £105m over a three-year period.

Because Kilman was signed from non-league Maidenhead for just £40,000 in August 2018, an eventual transfer fee would count virtually as pure profit under PSR, although Maidenhead would be due between 10 and 15 per cent of that sum.

Wolves have no plans to move for a defender this summer unless one of their current ones leaves. They will also welcome back Yerson Mosquera from a promising loan spell with Valencia in the second half of last season.

Pedro Neto remains on the radar of Europe’s elite though the Portuguese forward’s injury record may make it difficult for Wolves to achieve their asking price, thought to be about £60m.