West Ham Unitedhave failed in club record bids for the Cologne striker Anthony Modeste and the Villarreal forward Cedric Bakambu.

Telegraph Sport understands that the Premier League club has made offers of 25million euros (£22million) for each of the two forward players which is more than the £20million they paid to sign Andre Ayew from Swansea City last summer.

Co-chairman David Gold has already gone public with West Ham’s determination to bring in forward players during this transfer window with the injury problems being suffered by Andy Carroll and Diafra Sakho and a lack of options having hampered them last season. But the club has been shocked by the fees being demanded around Europe.

Modeste is a powerful striker who has done extremely well in Germany, scoring 25 goals in the Bundesliga last season, but Cologne are believed to be demanding more than £35million for the player even though he is 29.

The French forward was close to agreeing a deal to move to China, with the club Tianjin Quanjian, for a similar fee but that collapsed last week. The Chinese interest appears to be influencing the fee being asked for by Cologne.