Early indications are that the West Ham board have every intention of sticking by Daniel Kretinsky’s June promise that the club do not need to sell players this summer.
Banking £85 million for Mateus Fernandes will have gone a long way to calming nerves in the boardroom, though, in light of the poor state of the finances inherited from BS. From the lack of movement in the window to date it is clear there’s no fire sale.
That intent has led to high prices being placed on Premier League targets: The latest we hear to be priced ‘aggressively’ in the light of unwanted attention is El Hadji Malick Diouf who has had a £30 million price tag placed on his signature, according to Hammers News report in their exclusive today.
Diouf – under consideration by Emery’s Aston Villa
Aston Villa, reportedly, seek to come calling for Diouf after agreeing to part with their own first team regular Lucas Diane who is likely off to PSG after his World Cup exploits for France.
The fact that the West Ham board see fit to follow up fine words with strong action to ward off predators – having paid £20 million one year ago for the Senegalese defender they’ve determined his price at a 50% premium, despite a hit and miss first season – is reassuring news for supporters concerned that the reality behind the scenes might be less resilient than Kretinsky’s strongly worded statement on assuming overall control last month.
Kudos indeed to the Kretinsky / Gold boardroom alliance. The more we hear, the more we like the direction of travel. A couple of signings would go down a treat though….
If you look at his overall positioning, decision making etc. Scarles would have to improve very quickly even to play in The Championship.
Why do we always name an asking price on our players? If you want to keep them you don’t do this, which to me suggests that the Board are going to sell a lot more players than their initial post Sullivan statement suggests.
Would be great to get 30 for Diouf . Apart from some of his crosses he is a pretty bang average player and we have a ready made replacement called Olly Scarles who should be able to hold his own in the championship