Yes, Kanté is a safe and cost-optimized solution for West Ham at present. Not to mention that the French team is only 33 years old and still has enough strength to maintain top competition for another 1 or 2 seasons. But Al Ittihad's stance on N'Golo Kanté is still very clear. The Saudi Arabian team has no intention of selling Kante this summer. Laurent Blanc and the club's board are planning to use Kanté as a key part of the project, despite West Ham's approach. And Kanté himself does not want to return to the EPL. Now he wants to play softer football and be able to play more time. EPL is no longer suitable for Kanté. More importantly, at this time, Kanté is said to be receiving a salary of up to 50 million euros/year at Al Ittihad. West Ham will not be able to pay that amount.
Kante still can join French national team because he still has quality, he could maintain his good performance. Even if Kante is getting old and his market value is only around €9m, he has good ability as young players. West Ham can buy him at cheap price, but unfortunately Al Ittihad doesn't want lose Kante. Even West Ham give a big offer, I am sure Al Ittihad will prefer to keep him. Laurent Blanc is the main reason why they want to keep Kante. Kante must be suitable with Laurent Blanc's strategy/tactic. 50 million euros every year is huge amount of money, West Ham will have no allocation to pay that money every year.
Interesting situation as we all know Al ittihad and Laurent Blanc already having announcement regarding this news but still peoples are doing their best for this transfer on papers in reality most chance he is going to stay here in Saudi Arab for another season because now Al Ittihad is having good squad and new coach which can bring positive changes into their performance.
Al Ittihad and Laurent Blanc has made the decision, they want to keep him. They already rejected West Ham offer and don't want to accept any offer. If people assume Kante is still possible to leave, it is no problem because they have own assumptions. However, personally I think Kante has already no chance to move anywhere. He still has a contract with Al ijtihad, he must obey it.
Source: DW Africa