West Ham United have tried to exploit the growing turmoil at Manchester City by making an offer of up to £6 million for Richard Dunne. Alan Curbishley's move to strengthen the centre of his defence was not thought to be a priority for the summer, but the West Ham manager appears to have lost patience with Anton Ferdinand, who has been made available for transfer.

West Ham have been encouraged that Thaksin Shinawatra, the City owner, is planning an extensive clear-out of Sven-Göran Eriksson's squad. The Swede's possible departure as manager and upheaval at the City of Manchester Stadium appears to have angered Dunne, who has attracted attention from Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. The 28-year-old Ireland defender has a year left on his contract, which makes City's £8 million valuation inflated.

West Ham refused Ferdinand's request to leave Upton Park last summer, but they would be open to offers, with teams such as Newcastle, Portsmouth and Tottenham interested.

Curbishley has been given a small transfer budget, but wants to sign two full backs. Up to ten players could leave the East London club, including Luís Boa Morte, the winger, who has been booed by supporters.

After some criticism from fans, Curbishley has received backing from the board, which believes that he should be given the opportunity to show his ability when he can choose from a full-strength squad. However, Gianluca Nani, the club's Italian technical director, has earmarked Pierpaolo Bisoli as a potential future manager of West Ham. Bisoli came to prominence for taking Foligno, a little-known team, into the play-offs for promotion to Serie B, the Italian second tier.

City are a club in disarray as they continue their end-of-season visit to Thailand and Hong Kong with Eriksson firmly expecting that he will be dismissed when he meets the City owner.

Thaksin is preparing to offload not only the “dead wood” - players such as Andreas Isaksson, Darius Vassell, Georgios Samaras and Paul Dickov - but also many of last summer's signings, such as Rolando Bianchi - who spent the second half of the season on loan to Lazio - Valeri Bojinov, Javier Garrido and Geovanni.

Eriksson is already looking for a new job, but is understood to be ready to turn down positions with Benfica and Mexico, with a “much bigger job” believed to be in the pipeline.

The former England head coach is eager to have his fate resolved in a meeting that is planned to take place with Thaksin over the weekend after a farcical press conference in Bangkok yesterday, when the Swede and his players did not take questions from the floor owing to the sensitivity of their futures. Thaksin is likely to tell Eriksson in the next 48 hours that his services are no longer required - but even then he will be asked to lead the team into their match in Hong Kong next Thursday.

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