Month: June 2024

West Ham Monday Briefing: Rampant Rumours, Lopetegui’s Magnificent Seven Signings, and Striker Light

While we are distracted by the Euros the new Premier League season creeps ever closer with less than eight weeks to go. Will the new look West Ham be ready to go for the ball?

I Heard A Rumour

Keeping tabs on West Ham transfer rumours seemed like a fun idea at the outset. It would be an amusing distraction during the long summer days and nights as the Hammers sought to rebuild their squad out of the shambles left behind by the Scottish manager.

But the early enthusiasm is rapidly becoming as tiresome as a general election campaign. I had bargained on the flow of rumours settling down after an initial flurry, but the speculation shows no sign of slowing. It’s not, though, the number of rumours themselves that cause the distress. It’s having to wade through three-paragraphs of discharge on the background to Julen Lopetegui’s appointment before getting to the point of the story. Is there an Artificial Irrelevance engine that churns out this stuff?

Following another record week of gossip, we have now reached 86 potential targets – and there are sure to be some I have missed altogether. Still, I’ve started so I’ll finish – in the hope that in the real-world Tim Steidten is quietly masterminding recruitment behind the scenes.

There are two deviations in this week’s rumours. The first is that wonderkids have been replaced in the headlines by starlets, although it is not obvious what the differences are. Perhaps a starlet is a little older or a little bit less exciting than a wonderkid. The second is the slightly more worrying trend of the Hammers being linked to assorted detritus deemed surplus to requirements at other Premier League clubs. Dominic Calvert-Lewis, Callum Wilson and a clutch of Arsenal academy rejects, for example. The type of players who would have been on the previous manager’s shopping list. Forget your new-fangled data driven analysis, these guys might be too old, injury prone, or not much good, but hey, they do have Premier League experience.

The pursuit of Wes Foderingham is turning into a classic long running West Ham transfer saga. Quite what data needs to be crunched to sign a veteran, 3rd choice, emergency use only goalkeeper is anyone’s guess. Perhaps a check of his stats can confirm whether he is competent enough at putting the cones out during training.

Magnificent Seven Signings Needed In The Next Four Weeks

With the fixtures now issued, the tick of the clock is gradually sounding louder. It is only 54 days to the start of the new season, and 26 days to the first friendly against Dagenham & Redbridge. As things stand, Luis Guilherme is the only new arrival – nad he has been signed for potential rather than immediate impact. Time looks short for bringing in the required number of bodies and getting them organised to play the way the coach wants them to. Otherwsie a slow start to the season is guaranteed.

I was not a scholar of the way that Lopetegui played during his time at Wolves. A general summary of his preferred approach is: playing out from the back, adopting a high back-line, providing width from the full-backs, keeping hold of possession and energetic pressing. If that is the aim at West Ham, then very few of the current squad are equipped to deliver it. The only obvious contenders are Alphonse Areola, Edson Alvarez, Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus, and Lucas Paqueta. While Vladimir Coufal, Dinos Mavropanos, Emerson, James Ward-Prowse, and Tomas Soucek can provide useful backup, they don’t feel like starters in such a system to me. The assumption is that both Ben Johnson and Nayef Aguerd will be leaving anyway.

It represents quite a gap between desire and reality – even worse if some of the chosen few are tempted away or sacrificed in order to raise funds. This would leaves major priorities as a completely new backline, a mobile defensive minded midfielder, and a striker or two. As a minimum, a further seven signings are needed on board – and quickly.

My Kingdom For A Striker

I counted at least four number one transfer targets in the media during the week. My impression of the most persistent of the very many links seemingly being Max Kilman, Ryan Sessegnon, Youssef En-Nesyri, and Jayden Oosterwolde.

Although estimates of transfer kitty size should always be taken with a pinch of salt, I am not convinced that splurging a significant part of whatever funds are available on Kilman would be a wise move. If the fee is as reported in the £35 – £40 million range, there must be better value out there for a central defender. If big money is going to be spent in any position it has to be for a striker. West Ham’s woes in that department over the past dozen years or so is the stuff of legend. A revolving door of non-scoring duds. It is the most important position to get right and unfortunately, the most difficult one to fill on a budget.  

None of the striker names tat have been mentioned so far really get the juices flowing. And there are several that I hope have zero foundation to them, including Calvert-Lewin, Abrahams, and Wilson. Of the other players linked none have been especially prolific throughout their careers. I can understand why the familiarity of En-Nesyri would appeal to Lopetegui as a known quantity for his system, but he has never caught the eye when I have seen him play. Perhaps taking a gamble (no pun intended) on Ivan Toney would be the smart move despite his poor form after serving his ban – as well as the worry that he might well re-offend. At his best Toney is an excellent all-round striker with an ability to link up play and a healthy goalscoring record.

There does seem to be an incompatibility about the rather deseparate situation West Ham find themselves in on transfers. If you need to bring in many new players as early as possible in the window, then the opportunity to hold out for the best deals is limited – especially where there is competition for signature. But if you end up paying top dollar to get your man, there is less money remaining to satisfy the other gaps needed to be filled. A few minor miracles are required from Tim.

Naturally, the situation is not helped by the ongoing uncertainty over the future of Paqueta. Surely, even the Saudis wouldn’t be dumb enough to cough up a barrel load of oil money while the risk of world-wide ban is still a possibility. Incidentally, the latest from Paqueta Island is that no suspicious activity on the timing of polling day was found, but a lot has been staked on the Prime Minister being awarded a green card after the election.

This week’s list of unlikley transfer targets is shown below. You can see the entire 86 names here.

West Ham Monday Briefing: Wonder-Kidology, AI Addio, and a Norwegian Claret & Blue

This week’s West Ham waffle welcomes Luis Guilherme to the London Stadium and wonders on the wisdom of wonderkids

You Can’t Win Anything with Wonderkids

West Ham got their first transfer of the summer over the line last week with the signing of 18-year-old Brazilian Luis Guilherme. By all accounts his capture is something of a coup for the Hammers with the player having attracted plenty of interest from across Europe.

It was interesting to get the insight of South American football ‘expert’ Tim Vickery on Guilherme. Vickery clearly saw him as a very special talent, although one for the future rather than the here and now. In the context of West Ham needing to rebuild in all areas of the pitch, it is both an exciting and controversial first signing for the new regime. There has to be a delicate balance between building for the future and remaining competitive in the present.

We can only wait to see how he is deployed in the current season. Under the Scottish manager he could be expected to accumulate around 27 added-time substitution minutes before Christmas. Hopefully, Lopetegui has other plans to bed him in.

Vickery’s comments that the Paqueta betting scandal had worked in West Ham’s favour were rather bizarre. Admittedly it might have prevented him leaving the club in the short term, but a lifetime ban would represent a massive financial hit. The way that football finances now work, a large incoming transfer fee is a necessary boost to keep the squad refreshed. Like it or not the West Ham operating model in the current envirobment has to be built on buying bargains and selling on at a profit after a season or two of service.

If the reports are to be believed, the Hammers interest in wonderkids has not been exhausted by the signing of Guilherme. Suggestions persist that they continue to track Wesley Gassova of Corinthians and Ibrahim Maza of Hertha Berlin. Not only that but they are also in the market for one-time wonderkid, Ryan Sessegnon. Still only 24, Sessegnon was sold to Tottenham as a 19-year-old before being struck down by Spursy Syndrome. Could a move to the London Stadium work as an experimental cure for this debilitating north London disorder?  Or do nine out of ten wonder kids end up the same way as Sessegnon?

The Summer Transfer Smorgasbord

No sooner had the virtual ink virtually dried on last week’s article lamenting why so few Scandinavians had represented West Ham, when the club were linked with a move for giant Celta Vigo striker Jorgen Strand Larsen. According to an imaginary tweet by Fabrizio Romana, the would-be Norwegian claret and blue was pining for the old Fjord United sports ground, now the home of the Hammer’s Rush Green training centre.

In a further show of my visionary powers I will now throw out the suggestion that it’s about time West Ham finally recruited an Asian player. It is a feat that has so far eluded the club despite the countless shirt sales that such deals are alleged to bring in.

Otherwise, it has been a strangely quiet week for adding new names to the target speculation list. Most of the stories appearing online having been recycled from previous reports – the transfer rumour equivalent of endless repeats on Dave.

The obsession on rumour sites has been the signing of wingers even though Lopetegui is believed to operate without them – at least in their traditional getting to the byline and pumping in crosses role. He prefers to use his full backs for that.

We have to believe that links to Raheem Sterling are simply someone’s idea of a joke and I will sleep far more soundly once Tammy Abraham finally signs for another club. Neither of those options would shout smart recruitment to me with their current clubs desperate to offload. The same goes for signing Arsenal fringe players such as Reiss Nelson or Eddie Nketiah – both would represent very poor value.

One name that did standout was Jhon Arias, partly because of the weird spelling of John but also for triggering memories of ex-West Ham winger Johnny Ayris. Anyone familiar with how Ayris’s career was effectively ended will hope Chelsea are not currently scouting a full-back called Rhon Hairyass.

Below are this weeks latest targets. The full list of 64 players can be found here.

AI Addio: We’re Gonna Win The Cup

I used to have a dystopian nightmare that bothersome spectators would eventually be banned from attending live football games. The atmosphere for the ‘more lucrative’ TV audience being simulated by a combination of AI and CGI technologies. I;m convinced this is now possible but , of course, there is a very good reason why this cannot happen – the increasingly important role of annual revenues in the way that football clubs must operate. The size of revenues determines how much a club are allowed to spend of player transfers and wages.

Club revenues are typically categorised into Broadcast, Matchday and Commercial earnings. Broadcast revenues map directly to performance on the pitch and particularly to final Premier League placing, plus any European income. If West Ham and Tottenham finished close in the standings, then their Broadcast revenues would be roughly the same. But look at the most recent data in the Deloitte Rich List, and you will notice that Tottenham are streets ahead of the Hammers in Matchday (€135m vs €47m) and Commercial (€261m vs €58m) income. Although West Ham will show a large increase in Commercial income for the following year this is only because of the sale of Declan Rice.

Quite why there are such huge discrepancies between the two clubs is difficult to work out. After all, the Hammers are run by self-proclaimed business experts. The dilemma is that if West Ham are to progressively invest in the squad, they need to either squeeze matchday spectators for more money or regularly sell players at a profit. Neither course of action will be popular with fans as has been seen with the protests over season ticket price rises and removal of concessions.

It leaves West Ham and others hoping to break into the elite levels of league with a Gordian knot of a problem.

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Don’t forget the Premier League fixtures for the 2024/25 season are released tomorrow morning.

West Ham Monday Briefing: Sleepless in Sao Paulo, Crime and Punishment, and Transfer Window Waffle

The boys from Brazil once again dominate the news from the London Stadium. Could there be two new ones on the way, and will another be receiving a lifetime ban?

Sleepless in Sao Paulo

Many years ago, I remember tuning in to Radio 5 on the drive home from work to hear that West Ham had signed Eyal Berkovic. There had been no weeks of chatter and speculation beforehand. No mention of monitoring the situation, preparing bids, and holding talks. It was a good old-fashioned swoop in classic Harry Redknapp style.

Today there are no such stealthy manoeuvrings in the world of football transfers. I don’t know if it is true at all clubs, but details of West Ham’s recruitment plans are as leaky as last season’s defence. As if the media have a Where’s Tim app that can track his whereabouts at the touch of a button. And if media reports are to be believed, every transfer pursuit follows the three-act format of Romantic Comedy screen play – meet, lose, and get.

Tim (played by Hugh Grant) tracks down a beautiful potential signing, they get along famously, the player is excited about the London Stadium project and appearing in the Premier League, the club see him as a perfect fit for the progressive football model being built at West Ham. Then everything goes horribly wrong. The Chairman (Bill Nighy) can’t agree contract terms. Sporting Directors from other Premier League teams have been following matters on Newsnow and attempt to hijack the deal. Clubs from oil rich nations get involved (Four Beheadings and A Funeral) splashing piles of cash that would double his weekly salary. As the credits roll Tim makes a last gasp dash to the departure gate at Sao Paulo airport waving an improved offer from London in his hand.

Crime and Punishment

The Lucas Paqueta betting investigation rumbles on with the player’s representatives requesting an extension to the original June 3 deadline for responding to charges. No new date has yet to be agreed. The noises being made last week were that the FA would be pushing for a lifetime ban should Paqueta be found guilty.

Now, it could be a case of the claret and blue tinted spectacles kicking in, but a lifetime ban feels completely disproportionate to the severity of the offence. It’s a huge stretch to interpret being yellow carded as an attempt to fix the outcome of a match. The most ridiculous aspect here is that bookmakers allow bets to be placed on peripheral and easily influenced events like throw-ins, corners, and yellow cards in the first place. Just another case of their greed, I suppose. Happy to take your money as long as they hold all the cards, yellow or otherwise. The role of Betway in this affair should not be overlooked. Wouldn’t a quiet word have been more appropriate than a full-scale whistle-blowing that could result in one of their partners losing out on £85 million. The idea that a gambling firm was overcome with a sense of moral responsibility must be pure fantasy.

Then there is the FA, an organisation who have happily accepted Russian gangsters and murderous nation states as fit and proper football club owners, getting on their high horse over a prank by a bunch of Brazilian islanders. An independent regulator is looking more and more like a sound idea.

Speaking of authoritarian club owners, the Premier League are now being sued by Manchester City for discrimination because they have been prevented them from funnelling even more cash into the team that has just won their fourth consecutive title. City’s case also complaining bitterly about the ‘tyranny of the majority’ in Premier League decision making – or democracy as we call it.

We are programmed to dislike all the ‘big six’ clubs but City are now the most despised in my opinion. I would love to see them expelled from the league and stripped of all their titles when the hearing into the 155 breaches of rules is finally heard. But that is never going to happen!

Breaking News: Transfer Update

Only four days to go before the transfer window officially opens and the speculation keeps on rolling in. Speculation continues to be dominated by Brazilians with strong rumours that Luis Guilherme is about to become the first signing of the Lopetegui era. A worrying trend in recent days has seen Guilherme regularly described as a wonderkid. It is a term that has historically been applied to youngsters who eventually disappear without trace. A second stuborn rumour is that the Hammers will lso be signing Brazilian centre-back Vitao.

We should not forget the final exciting update of the transfer week as West Ham have seemingly fought off stiff competition to capture the signature of Wes Foderingham as third choice keeper.

A further 15 names have been added to the speculative target list this week as shown below. The full list of 52 linked players can be viewed here. Even if most are made up, they are a better class of speculation than we were used to under the Scottish Manager (it is bad luck to mention him by name). No more Maguires, McTominays or Brownhills on the list – although Tammy Abraham remains a worry.

There is Nothing Like a Dane

Apropos of nothing, I was looking through the annals of Scandinavians who have turned out in a West Ham shirt. Given the love of their gods for hammers, it is a very short list. There are currently 14 Danes, 8 Swedes, 5 Norwegians, and 1 Finn playing in the Premier League. But none at the London Stadium.

It has not been a fertile area of recruitment at the club with the most successful in terms of both appearances and goals being Marc Rieper. I was very sorry to see him go when he left for Cletic.

Here is the full list: Rieper (101 apps, 5 goals), Jaaskelainen (61, 0), Ljungberg (28, 2), Jacobsen (26, 0), Nordtveit (21, 0), Carew (21, 2), Tihinen (10, 0), Soma (9, 0), Alexanderson (8, 0), Samuelson (2, 0).

West Ham Monday Briefing: Blank Czechs, Everyone Wants a Brazilian, and VAR Check Incomplete

In this week’s round-up we look at shot shy defenders, South American Hammers and Thursday’s vote on the abolition of VAR. Plus the latest names added to the transfer shopping list.

In case you are already suffering Premier League withdrawal symptoms, a reminder that there are just 11 days to the opening of the transfer window, 15 to the publication of new fixture lists, and 75 to the start of the 2024/25 season. In the interim there is the opportunity to watch the Euros, prepare for the club’s pre-season tour, and follow the relentless stream of transfer gossip.

One of the positions that has rarely surfaced in the flood of transfer speculation to date is any new faces at right back. With Ben Johnson likely to leave this would leave the door open for another season as first choice to Vladimir Coufal. Let’s face it the squad has too many issues to fix them all in a single summer. If that is the case then it would allow Vladimir to close in on super Thomas Repka’s modern day record of most games for a West Ham outfield player without a goal. At present Repka leads the race by 188 to 153. It would be an easy target to achieve with another full season for the wayward Czech international.

I know that many are keen to point out that football existed before the Premier League was formed, so let’s look at the all-time records. Topping the leader board is William Cope (1914 – 1922) with 258 games but his claims come with the caveat that a large part of his career was war-time football – not usually included in career statistics. Next in line, and peacetime record holder, is Alfred Earl (1925 – 1932) with a total of 206 appearances at right back. Tied with Repka in third place is left-back Charlie Walker (1936 – 1946) – another whose career which included war-time competition. The other centurions from (my) living memory are Keith Coleman (1973 – 1977) and Danny Gabbidon (2005 – 2011) with 122 and 113 games respectively.

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As clubs strat to circle for their early summer signings, Tim Steidten has reportedly been shuttling back and forth to Brazil in an attempt to increase the samba quotient in the threadbare West Ham squad. Early targets are said to be Fabricio Bruno, Wesley Gassova, and Luis Guilherme. With the Bruno deal apparently stalled due to wage demands, the chatter on what will be first deal of the season has since switched to the 18-year-old Guilherme. It would be an interesting move to sign such a young player – no matter how talented or exciting – unless it was felt he could be a regular starter in a punishing Premier League season.

Much, of course, will depend on how the Lucas Paqueta situation eventually pans out following the recently announced FA charges. Whatever the outcome, it is unlikely to be resolved quickly leaving a high chance that he will feature in the Hammer’s plans during the opening part of the season. It will also mean no injection of external funds to finance the rebuild.

There are now more Brazilians in the Premier League than from any other country, other than England. The last count stood at 34, ahead of France (28), Republic of Ireland (27), Spain (25) and Portugal (22). They have not all been a rip-roaring success with the West Ham experience being less than sparkling. A fact that applies equally across the band of South American players who have donned the claret and blue. Of 22 South Americans, only Manuel Lanzini has made it past 100 games. The best was probably Carlos Tevez, whose stay was disappointingly short. The worst was Carlos Sanchez. Pablo Zabaleta and Nobby Solano were great players but came to West Ham too late in their careers.

The full cast of South American players to feature in at least one first team game is shown below. There has yet to be a Bolivian or Venezuelan Hammer:

Argentina (Lanzini, Zabaleta, Tevez, Zarate, Calleri, Scaloni, Mascherano, Tarrico)
Brazil (Paqueta, Anderson, Ilan, Nene)
Chile (Margas, Jimenez)
Colombia (Sanchez, Armero)
Paraguay (Balbuena, Montenegro)
Uruguay (Poyet, Lopez)
Ecuador (Valencia)
Peru (Solano)

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On Thursday, Premier League clubs will vote on the proposal put forward by Wolves to scrap VAR. The indications are that it will not get the support of the 14 clubs needed to carry the motion. It has been reported that West Ham will be voting for its retention. The attitude of the clubs is a strange one. The general consensus is that VAR has made the matchday experience for supporters significantly worse. Any marginal improvement in the perceived accuracy of decisions – remembering that many are subjective anyway – is offset by a loss of spontaneity and prolonged review times. The feeling being that games are being officiated by faceless technicians in Stockley Park.

Against that, the TV media have grown to love VAR and the ‘talking points’ that it gives them. Presenters have made VAR checks part of the entertainment for the uncommitted hoe audience. It has also given them a sense of power as they view replays and listen in to the conversations of the VAR team. Decisions are announced in many cases before the referee and supporters in the stadium get to know. It is not a good way to treat the paying customers.

The best hope from Thursday’s vote may be to prompt a serious review of VAR’s remit. Their campaign to leave no stone unturned in finding a reason to disallow a goal has to be curtailed.

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It has been a quieter week on the gossip front with only 14 new names to add to last week’s total. A few shockers on the list which we can only hope have no substance to them.