Tag: #transfers

West Ham Monday Briefing: “Florida Threes”, “Disconnecting Flights” and the “Shape of Things To Come”

As the countdown to the season opener continues, West Ham transfer frenzy steps up to new levels while friendly displays fail to impress

As the unofficial curator of the West Ham transfer links list, it is my duty to wade through the daily slurry of stories on the news feeds to keep up to date with the latest rumours. For the record, the list of targets has now risen to an impressive 140, of which just four have turned into confirmed deals.

The latest trend for any aspiring rumour site wishing to stand out from the crowd of recycled news is to include an apparent quote at the beginning of your headline. Not an honest “We haven’t got a clue what’s going on, mate” or ‘Your guess is as good as mine” but a more teasing “Have been told” or “Deal on the cards” tag – the written equivalent of tapping ones nose to suggests a level of reliable insider knowledge.

One of the more intriguing snippets of in-he-know-ness this week was hidden among Friday’s news where it was claimed Inter Milan were ‘plotting a Saturday phone call’ with a view to hijack West Ham’s bid for Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Surely that’s the sort of information that only comes to light through undercover surveillance.

There is a tipping point in transfer pursuits when you start to get the feeling that this deal is just not going to happen. The Wan-Bissaka story is getting very close to that. Chances of a signing are following the same trajectory previoulsy seen with Jhon Duran. Time to look elsewhere, I think, for an upgrade to the rapidly diminishing powers of Vladimir Coufal.

There has of course been a signficant further signing in the last seven days with the recruitment of Crysencio Summerville from Leeds United. It represents an exciting addition to the squad and has led to plenty of speculation as to how and where the coach will deploy him alongside Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus, Lucas Paqueta and the promised new striker. It’s a lineup that suggests rapid and direct attacks rather than the composed possession and patient build up that Julen Lopetegui is known for.

Expectations are also high for the imminent signings of striker Niclas Füllkrug from Borussia Dortmund and free agent defensive midfielder Guido Rodríguez, formerly of Real Betis. Should those come to fruition the remaining top priorities will be at right back and centre back where the squad is highly exposed. Strengthening the defensive midfield areas may help stem the tide but last season’s leaky defence continues to have significant gaps to plug throigh an injection of speed, strength, mobility and awareness. Although the desire to find ball-playing defenders is understandable, their core competency must still be the art of defending.

When the Füllkrug story broke last week, it was reported that Tim Steidten was immediately flying from Florida to Germany to agree terms with club and player. While at the same time, Füllkrug was said to be boarding a charted jet taking him from Germany to London. No wonder these deals take such a long time to complete!

The prospect of a sizeable fee being paid for a 31-year-old striker has been met with a degree of negativity online. While someone younger may have been ideal, Füllkrug looks s less risky bet to me than the unproven Duran. The downside, of course, it the absence of a resale value at the end of his contract. But if Füllkrug can reproduce his Dortmund form both with his goals and by acting as a foil for the exciting talent behind him, he could turn out to be an inspired choice.

Should Füllkrug join Summerville at the London Stadium it would be a rare venture by West Ham into signing northern European players. Previous experiences with Dutch (Jeroen Boere, Marco Boogers, Raymond Atteveld) and German (Thilo Kehrer, Thomas Hitzlsperger, Savio Nsereko) players have never managed to reach the heights. Better luck this time, perhaps!

The Hammers ended their Florida pre-season schedule with a second successive 3-1 defeat, this time to Crystal Palace, who are fast becoming something of a bogey side. The value of participating in pre-season tournaments such as these has to be questionable. What is the point and what can be learned from them? The West Ham starting eleven contained just three players certain to be lining up against Aston Villa in just under two weeks’ time.

From what we saw it is hard to disagree with Lopetegui’s assessment that there is a lot of work still to do. That would apply equally if all the first-choice players had been available. Those returning from international duty have yet to feature in any pre-season fixtures, while others likely to start on August 17 have yet to sign for the club. Modern football has become increasingly structured with team shape and individual positions – both in and out of possession – repeatedly drilled into players over time. This is going to take more than a couple of extra weeks to get right. And there are sure to be a collection of howlers and calamities as the players get to grips with the idea of playing out from the back.

We don’t yet know exactly how Lopetegui plans to set up his side. Conventional wisdom has been that he prefers rampaging full-backs to provide width and pump in crosses. But the full-backs he has are not really equipped for that role. Such a tactic would also impact the way that Bowen and Summerville prefer to play. I’m sure the coach has a plan though and it will be intriguing to witness how it plays out.

The season approaches with a mix of excitement and nervousness. I genuinely feel the club is slowly going in the right direction but it may take a dozen games or so of the new campaign to get up to speed.

West Ham Monday Briefing: Gathering Storm Clouds, Rummage Sales and Working Around The Clock

The early enthusiasm generated by the promise of a new coach and recruitment philosophy has lost a little of its shine after encountering reality. Time to get reinforcements through the door quickly.

Find a safe space, relax, breathe deeply and repeat the following mantra until convinced: “they are only friendlies, results don’t matter; the window is still open for another month yet; most of the transfer links to Premier League deadbeats exist only in the figment of a rumour sites imagination.”

Today’s average pre-season friendly is a very different beast to what I remember from my youth. Any top tier club worth its salt feels now feel obliged to play exhibition games against Premier League opposition in the farthest flung locations imaginable – even if it means playing games during hurricane season. In the past it was a case of warming up with a kickabout in the less exotic surroundings of Southend or Gillingham.

And there is no more ‘entrance by matchday programme only’ which you can buy for a couple of bob. Now you you need to buy a package to stream online while staying up all night waiting for a storm to pass in a far-off time zone.

I think we can all agree with Julen Lopetegui’s assessment following the defeat by Wolves that there is ‘work to be done.’ Something that applies to activities both on and off the pitch. I doubt much has been learned that we didn’t already know. Even the casual observer would have been aware that players such as Tomas Soucek and Kurt Zouma have no place in a system based upon maintaining possession. Soucek seems like a smashing fellow but clearly suffers from an unreliable data connection between brain and feet. By the time information is received, someone else has the ball. And Zouma’s injury woes have left him with the mobility of a Thunderbird’s puppet and a turning circle that the average family car would be within a whisker of beating. Sad, but he is no longer up to Premier League standard.

It’s always good to see a few youth team players get a run-out in these games but it is only any use if they are gradually introduced to, and used in, competitive matchday squads. Too often, academy players have looked promising pre-season cameos and then are never seen again. Freddie Potts has impressed and would hope to see him along with George Erathy and Lewis Orford getting Premier League minutes.

Nothing seen so far suggests that Luis Guilherme is anything other than one for the future. A player who needs plenty of time to adapt to life in England before demonstrating his wonderkid status. The ‘wonder’ prefix is wildly overused in modern football reporting whether it is wonderkids or wonder goals. The latter is routinely applied to the most mundane of strikes if they are outside of the box. If Diana Prince had the ability to parallel park or explain the offside rule it would be impressive, but far more would have been needed to merit the title of Wonder Woman.

The off-field priority is for the transfer department to pull its collective finger out without any further delay. Less than three weeks to the season opener and there is little to show from all the talks, advanced talks, and locked in talks that we have been told about. As a fan we don’t have to worry ourselves with the details of transfers budgets, payment schedules, fair play rules, and agent fees but it is difficult not to be disillusioned with the overall lack of progress. And although we have no way of knowing which (if any) of the rumours are true, many of them are truly underwhelming in nature.  

What had promised to be a summer of surgically smart spending – unearthing the world’s best emerging talent – has turned into the equivalent of a man desparately hoping to buy his wife a birthday present after arriving late at a rummage sale. Underneath a box of china poodles, a 1976 Black Beauty annual, and a box set of ‘Confessions Of’ DVDs, all he will find is Tammy Abraham, Armando Broja and assorted debris thrown out by Arsenal and Chelsea. It’s not what I was expecting.

The squad is still short in a host of critical positions – striker, centre back, right back and defensive midfield being the greatest areas of need in my opinion. But how far can the budget stretch with the types of fees and wages being mentioned to plug those gaps? Much media attention has also focused on a left sided attacking midfield but I’m not personally convinced it’s a top priority in a side wanting to incorporate Mohammed Kudus, Jarrod Bowen, and Lucas Paqueta into its line-up, and with Guilherme as backup. The striker search, as ever, is the transfer hot potato at West Ham. The Jhon Duran situation feels like one of those pursuits that will enter folklore as a long running saga of wasted time and effort. And anyway, with no viable striker alternative at the club it would be a huge risk to put all your trust in an unproven 20-year-old.

The list of targets I have recorded overthe window now extends to 129 names (click to see the entire list). The latest additions have been mostly new defenders after the club failed to agree deals with previous targets. The assumption is that the financial side of transfers is still overseen by David Sullivan and other Board members rather than Tim Steidten. It isthe rock that many deals flounder on.

It would be premature to predict the storm clouds might be gathering at the London Stadium but one can sense a few distant rumbles. The objective of having a new squad assembled in time for pre-season has failed. The ‘work to be done’ is likely to extend well into the opening weeks of the season and a slow start will make hopes of aiming for European qualification all the more difficult. The danger is that the apparent setbacks experienced with bringing players in (and shifting out those who are surplus to requirements) will compromise the strategy for smart recruitment and the mistakes of previous windows will be repeated.

I’m sure those involved are working around the clock to resolve matters – although sometimes it feels like the transfer team don’t work weekends – but positive recruitment news is needed fast if the slowly descending gloom is to be shifted. My hope is that moves are taking place behind the scenes to make just the sort of exciting signings we all crave.  

West Ham Monday Briefing: Window Pains, Ins and Outs, and Arsenal’s Overpriced Rejects

Time marches on and West Ham’s recruitment feels like it has fallen victim to the global tech outage. Time for the system to be rebooted if Lopetegui’s team are to hit the ground running.

The clock continues to tick. Minutes become hours, hours become days and the new Premier League season is less than four weeks away. Julen Lopetegui’s hope of having his new look squad in place and primed for action before the big kick-off is looking increasingly unrealistic. Two weeks have passed since the signing of Max Kilman and he remains the sole new recruit likely to be a regular starter when the season opens.

Last season’s threadbare squad has already seen the departure of a host of players: Thilo Kehrer, Said Benrahma, Pablo Fornals, Angelo Ogbonna, Flynn Downes and Ben Johnson. If the grapevine is to be believed, the club are also hoping to shift Kurt Zouma and Nayef Aguerd before the transfer window closes. There’s much work to be done – signing five or six players – and very little time left to do it in. Past performance of getting deals over the line is not encouraging.

No doubt everyone would have wanted to have made more progress by now. The transfer objectives are not simply a case of finding a few remaining pieces to complete a jigsaw, but rather starting work on a whole new puzzle. The longer it takes to make the right signings, the less time there is available to finesse the new tactical approach. A task made more difficult by international absences and the degree of change the new coach is hoping to introduce.

I’m sure the lack of progress is not down to a lack of effort by Tim Steidten and Lopetegui. It is not in their interests to stretch matters out. A slow start to the season – which we might realistically have to accept now – will immediately put the new regime under pressure.    

To date, I have recorded 122 players that West Ham have been linked to. To maintain one’s sanity it is best to accept that most are the pure fabrications of a self-sustaining, clickbait, gossip and rumour network co-ordinated by evil transfer mastermind Fabrizio Romano. However, the names of the eventual signings are probably hidden somewhere within that lengthy list.

Hoping to get your recruitment done early but only paying bargain prices were always going to be incompatible ambitions. This is the most obvious stumbling block for most deals until the final days of the window are reached. It is understandable in the days of FFP and PSR that buying clubs are ever more mindful of managing their budgets, while it makes sense for selling clubs to hold out for a better deal. It is a system that encourages last minute deals.

The Hammers desperate need to recruit ‘match ready’ starters will also limit the ability of Steidten to demonstrate his pearl diving expertise. The German’s true value to the club will only be obvious when he can regularly unearth the talents of future, whether that is from South America or the Dutch or Belgian leagues. Unfortunately this window Steidten has, by necessity, been forced to fish in the waters of already established players for his catch. It is the opposite of what many expected.

West Ham now head off to the USA to play friendlies against Wolves and Crystal Palace before returning to play Celta Vigo, a week before the season starts, in the Betway Cup. Friendlies are far more high profile these days than in the past where they largely passed unnoticed. Often, they are glorified kick-abouts but still get TV coverage and websites offering player ratings. I’ve never noticed any correlation between pre-season results and what happens when the season gets going. Once again we have seen a number of youth players given a run out in the games against Ferencvaros and Dagenham & Redbridge. Usually they disappear for good after pre-seson but hopefully some of the current crop can make a valuable contribution once the season starts for real. George Earthy and Lewis Orford in particular look to be exceptional prospects.

Of all the gaps in the squad in the squad, it is the long running absurdity of West Ham’s efforts to sign a striker that garners most attention. Can they get it right this time around? Not if the answer is believed to be Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Callum Wilson or Eddie Nketiah they won’t. One of the most comical transfer stories of the window so far has been the suggestion that Nketiah is available for £50 million.  There is a fashion of linking failed bit-part Arsenal players to the London Stadium. Another trending in recent weeks has been Reiss Nelson, a player whose only claim to fame is scoring an added time winner against Bournemouth. Even on an Arsenal blog, the author doubted the move would be sensible or prove good value for the Hammers. Avoid!

My personal preference continues to be Ivan Toney who appears not to have the long line of suitors anticipated. He is the type of all-round striker who can both score goals as well as getting involved in build-up play. I could see him working well with Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus. Ideally, the club should have been signing a player like Toney while he was at Peterborough. Just as Brentford have signed Toney’s replacement, Igor Thiago, from the Belgian League side Club Brugge.  Maybe Jhon Duran from Aston Villa can develop into a superstar striker but  with no other realistic striker option in the squad – I am discounting any further involvement from Michail Antonio – it would represent a single point of failure and a huge risk.

If there is one decision to get right, it is finding the right striker.

Wishing You All A Happy New Transfer Window

Hooray! The transfer window is open again. The January window is typically very quiet at West Ham but does it make sense to rely on the same old bare bones when there are trophies to be won?

Never mind all that nonsense about peace, health and prosperity, it is the springing open of the transfer window that ushers in 2024 with the greatest anticipation. Will the Hammers be up to much over the coming month? Probably not, but here we take a moment to contemplate West Ham’s transfer conundrums past and present.

The Problem With The Squad Is Depth

According to the Transfer Market website West Ham have the 10th most valuable squad in the Premier League – coming in at an estimated EUR 462 million. In addition to the traditional ‘big’ six clubs, the Hammers also fall behind the Newcastle, Aston Villa, and Brighton squads who are valued at EUR 640 million, EUR 638 million, and EUR 488 million respectively. The website bases its market value estimates on age, performance, contract length, position, international caps, and potential. Although some of that may be subjective, it does provide a reasonable indication as to the relative strength of squads we are in immediate competition with.

Considering the best elevens of the four clubs, there is not much between them. But as you drill down, the lack of depth in the West Ham squad becomes apparent. David Moyes has challenged the squad players to step up to fill in for the AFCON absentees, but based on recent performances the cupboard has looked incredibly bare. The reserve players – Ings, Benrahma, Fornals, Kehrer, Cresswell, Johnson – have either not been good enough, or have had insufficient game time, to provide effective backup when called upon. It is fortunate – either through good luck or sensible training methods – that the Hammers have enjoyed a mostly injury free season compared to other sides. Ironically, it was the one long term injury (to Michail Antonio) which forced the manager into the attacking positional changes that have proved the bright spot to the first half of the season.

Transfer Spend and Payroll

Attention during transfer windows is typically focused on net expenditure – transfer fee incomings minus outgoings – but tends to gloss over player salaries which actually makes up a larger slice of the pie. Since the start of the 2012/13 season, West Ham have spent £855 million on transfers and received £390 million from player sales – a net spend of £465 million. During the same period, player salaries have totalled approximately £800 million.

Over the last 13 transfer windows (since the start of the 2017/18 season) the net spend at West Ham has been £342 million which is higher than at Villa (£329 million) and Brighton (- £19 million) but below that of Newcastle (£463 million) whose spending has been inflated over the past four windows by deep Saudi pockets. The evidence of spending against squad value would suggest that West Ham have failed to spend their money wisely.

A comparison of current annual player payrolls has West Ham at £94 million compared to £117 million at Villa, £84 million at Newcastle, and £61 million at Brighton. It should also be noted that the West Ham squad has the highest average age across the four clubs – Fulham are the only older squad in the Premier League.

Transfer Hits And Misses

The West Ham transfer merry-go-round has had its fair share of hits and misses over the years. For services rendered, the modest fees paid for Cresswell, Ogbonna, Antonio, Fabianski, Coufal, and Dawson have each showed a welcome return on investment. Payet and Arnautovic were both exceptional signings who promised much before their claret and blue careers ended in acrimonious circumstances.

Of the players still on the books, the signings of Bowen, Paqueta, Kudus, Ward-Prowse, and Alvarez have either been, or are looking likely to become, great business. We can never know how long any player’s West Ham careers will last but if we have to sell, selling at a handsome profit is to be desired – something that has been a rare occurrence over the years.

The list of transfer flops is long and expensive. In no particular order, my personal list of stinkers – based on huge fees, big wages or generally failing to live up to expectations – are Jarvis, Carroll, Hernandez, Hugill, Anderson, Wilshere, Haller, Ajeti, Vlasic, Cornet and Ings. No transfer is guaranteed to succeed but having finally woken up to need for professional recruitment, lets hope this level of wastefulness is a thing of the past.

Financial Fair Play

We can never be certain whether the FFP card is being used as a reason or an excuse not to spend money. The rules appear to keep changing and, in any case, become obscured by the smoke and mirrors of accounting practices. It was reported that West Ham just about scraped within the UEFA rules for the last financial year. But the position should be eased as result of the summer sale of Declan Rice. While the fee received for Rice should show up in full in this year’s revenue, the transfer fees paid out can be amortised across the length of the incoming players contracts. If my calculations are correct, the charge for last summer’s incoming transfers will be equal to £25 million in the current financial year.

Academy Rewards

The money received from the Rice sale illustrates the value that a club’s academy can deliver. Sadly, the West Ham academy has proved largely unproductive since the golden generation of Ferdinand, Lampard, Cole, Carrick, and Defoe. Since the 2012/13 season, 38 academy graduates have played for the first team at some level, but only six have ever made a Premier League start. Their 242 starts breaks down as Rice 190, Johnson 34, Diagana 6, Ngakia 5, Burke 4, and Oxford 3. It’s a very disappointing record.

Academy teams have performed well over the past few seasons, but success has yet to filter through as first team breakthroughs. While it is tempting to pin the blame on Moyes for his reluctance to trust in youth, the poor return is not new – or unique to West Ham. It has become increasingly difficult for youth players to make it at the top level.

Transfer Priorities

The January window is usually a time for tweaks rather than wholesale changes. It is a time for finding that missing piece of the jigsaw in a bid for glory, or to make desperate buys to stave off relegation. Is there any single signing that could make all the difference to West Ham’s season? A new centre back perhaps to cover for Zouma’s dodgy knees? A free-scoring striker but how would that fit with Bowen and Kudus? Someone more technically gifted than Soucek to partner Alvarez in a double pivot? Where to start?

The Hammers also have an issue with home grown players which limits their ability to offload several of the fringe players who are unlikely to feature regularly in the Premier League. The home grown contingent is at the minimum level and includes Ings, Cresswell, Johnson, Coventry and Anang. If any are sold they would need to be replaced by other British players who are generally priced at a premium..

History shows that West Ham are rarely active in the winter window. Since 2012, only Byram (2016), Snodgrass and Fonte (2017), Hugill (2018), Bowen and Soucek (2020), and Ings (2023) have been January arrivals. Reports of multiple comings and goings should be taken with a pinch of salt. Change is needed but most will surely wait until the summer. But it will not stop a daily dose of transfer speculation for the next four weeks.

West Ham’s Transfer Window Of Shame And Betrayal

It was the perfect time to back up performances on the pitch with further investment in the squad. True to form the owners have failed to deliver yet again.

Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed by West Ham’s eventual January window signings. But it never occurred to me that there would be no incomings at all. Why would a club with one of the thinnest squads in the Premier League – with a reasonable chance of Champions League qualification (on two fronts) and a shot at an FA Cup run – decide not to improve its playing strength?

Media reports have suggested that West Ham fans will be frustrated and scratching their heads at the lack of activity. I would say it is far worse than that given the potential implications. Most are furious that a glorious opportunity to push on from a position of strength has been negligently squandered. A statement of intent was what we wanted but once again it never came. So, who is to blame?

As I said in a previous article, my assumption is that the part played by David Moyes and Rob Newman in the recruitment process is to come up with a list of potential targets that would complement and improve the current squad. It would be based on their assessment of key priorities, the type of player required and (I would imagine) would some take account of affordability. Ideally, they would also be taking both a short and a medium-term view, but for the January window it would focus primarily on immediate needs. Players able to make a telling contribution during what is left of the season. If for some reason they weren’t unable to identify any targets, then they should be rightly criticised. But that seems to be a highly unlikely scenario.

Some supporters suggest Moyes is complicit in the club’s transfer shortcomings because he is too much of a ‘Yes’ man. That seems a rather unfair observation to me. His character is the type to want a good working relationship with the owners, rather than ranting and raving about them in public, but what else can he do? His only other option would be to resign. Would you do that?

I don’t know the precise responsibilities in Newman’s job description, but I am confident that it doesn’t involve negotiating transfer fees and contracts. None of us can know what input he had made or whether he has earned his salary until signings have been made. Negotiation of those deals are handled by the Board and through their representatives (agents). In West Ham’s case it is under the direct supervision of David Sullivan, facilitated by the various agents he works with.

In hindsight, a rat should have been smelled on what we were up to immediately the spurious, unrealistic bids for unavailable players started to hit the headlines. What club is going to sell their best players in the final days of the window when there is little or no chance of finding replacements anyway. It was a typical Sullivan tactic. The grand gesture designed to give the impression of ambition but, lacking any foundation or expectation of success. Does he think we are stupid and have forgotten all the previous distractions? Or does he simply hold supporters in contempt? Any softening of attitudes towards Gold and Sullivan that had taken place due to improvements on the pitch will have hardened back to rock solid animosity once again. I wonder what Kretinsky makes of it all, or what role he played in the process?

I was left wondering whether there was ever any intention of making new signings right from the start. What groundwork had been made during the first thirty days to get deals over the line. Which players did we actually miss out on? You don’t just pick players names out of a hat on the final day.

As I have also written before, deals are complex affairs and include agreements of transfer fees, payment terms, player’s contracts, image rights, agent fees and so on. It is the easiest thing in the world to engineer a snag or sticking point if you don’t want to make it happen. There must be 50 ways to leave a transfer – Just bid a low fee, Lee; Or ask for loan, Joan.

Sullivan’s fixation with loan to buy agreements will likely scupper many deals. It stems from previous signings who have failed to settle into English football at great cost to the club. A try before you buy might be attractive for the buyer but offers little value to the selling club. No wonder they are so frequently rejected. Continuing to insist on these deals in the future will only lead to further pain. Even if they did get their fingers burned by backing Pellegrini’s poor recruitment in the past, they shouldn’t be placing that mistrust onto the shoulders of Moyes and Newman in the future.

Several West Ham websites with close links to the owners had started dropping hints about Dithering Dave (Moyes) in the final few days of the window. A classic attempt to distract from the Board failings in my view. Did Moyes turn down suggestions for the odd Sullivan special picks that have featured prominently in past transfer windows?  Should Moyes have lowered his standards for the purpose of expediency? Would an erratic backup striker (such as Origi or Benteke) have been better than no backup at all? It is all very unsatisfactory!

The transfer furore will slowly die down as the games start up again. The extent to which that is allowed to happen will depend on events on the pitch. The same key players will now be expected to see out the rest of the season with precious little chance of a rest. And that is without injuries and suspensions in a squad that is severely exposed at key positions including centre back, left back and striker. A squad where the game changing options from the bench are Yarmolenko and Masuaku.  Where we could have been flying high, it now feels like a season of great promise that will simply fade and die.

The transfer window was an opportunity sadly and inexplicably lost. It sends out a terrible message to those players in the squad with ambition who might have believed something special could be built at West Ham. Finishing top four or winning the Europa League might have convinced those admired by the bigger clubs to stick around for a little bit longer. Such dreams have suddenly become far less attainable.