West Ham United now face a battle to land 21-year-old Toulouse defender Issa Diop, as Everton are reportedly stepping up their pursuit in a bid to hijack the move.

Diop, who is the current France Under-21 captain, is rated at £25 million and is thought to be high on Hammers boss Manuel Pellegrini’s list of transfer targets.

But the Merseyside team have also expressed an interest in rebuilding their defence under the stewardship of new head coach Marco Silva and could step into the breach amid claims a move for the defender has stalled in recent days.

Reports in France dispute earlier suggestions that West Ham had agreed a deal in principle with the highly-rated centre-half, claiming instead that the Ligue 1 side rebuffed their early advances thought to be in the region of 15 million euros.

The Hammers board will therefore be keen to thrash out a deal to avoid being pipped by their Premier League rivals.

Since his debut in 2015 Diop has played 85 Ligue 1 games scoring six times, also featuring a total of 37 times for Toulouse last term as they avoided relegation by virtue of a play-off win over Ajaccio.