By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
The news that West Ham are close to sanctioning the sale of El Hadji Malick Diouf to Brentford for £40 million has, quite frankly, frightened the life out of me.
On the face of it, such a large transfer fee for a player who clearly struggled in the Premier League at times last season would seem like good business.
But if all sell-on clauses are reached, the business the Hammers have already done this transfer window will yield £170 million in income. Therefore, it begs the question: quite how much more money do the club actually need?
But realistically, that concern is secondary.
What worries me more than anything else are the targets who appear to be genuine and close, and those who have already signed.
Who exactly is replacing Diouf?
If you look closely at it, we appear to be continually linked with a group of over-the-hill players or injury-prone journeymen.
My biggest concern with selling Diouf is that, at the moment, I have very little evidence that the club will be able to replace him adequately.
Nils Koppen has been brought in as West Ham’s recruitment director. But if we’re honest, players like Joel Veltman, Reiss Nelson, Manor Solomon and Jamie Vardy don’t require any scouting or even any particular inside knowledge of the game.
These are all well-known, well-established players.
My biggest concern about selling our young Senegalese left-back is that I currently have no confidence at all that the club will be able to go out and identify the next best young, upcoming full-back to replace him.
And it’s that which terrifies me.
West Ham can’t just sell the family silver
At the moment, we are not seeing any real money spent and I’m starting to get slightly concerned that the club are selling off our younger players and, indeed, the family silver, and replacing them with loans and free transfers.
The recruitment of Diouf and Mateus Fernandes represented exactly the model West Ham should be following. Both were brought in as young players with the potential to develop and increase significantly in value.
Indeed, the recruitment of Fernandes and Diouf has previously been highlighted as evidence of West Ham finally identifying young players with significant upside.
It’s precisely the model which has served Brighton & Hove Albion so well over the years.
But the really important part is what happens next.
When you cash in on a promising young player, he needs to be replaced by another who can not only function well in the first team, but also develop and increase in value.
As we’ve previously reported, Diouf and Fernandes were exactly the sort of high-potential profiles West Ham’s previous recruitment structure was attempting to identify.
That’s the cycle West Ham need to repeat.
Considering the owners have already yielded £170 million, there should be enough of a buffer to keep Malick in Nuno Espírito Santo’s squad.
If they really are that desperate for the £40 million, then the opportunity to sell him will surely still be there next summer.
And we’d most certainly stand a far better chance of winning promotion back to the Premier League with Diouf in the squad.
Gonzo, your point about building a team around the likes of Diouf and Fernandes is completely valid, of course, but the factor that undermines that is relegation. Diouf is ambitious, and if there’s an opportunity for him to stay in the premier league, he’s probably going to push for it. If no offers had come in, he probably would have stayed. Some of the sales were required to balance the books, but when an offer is as good as this one, it’s likely to be accepted. I do hope this is the end of it though, a bit concerned that Taty will go. If we go up, we can restart next summer, and look at rebuilding with a recruitment policy focussing on younger, promising players.
100% with you, Gonzo. This is a very worrying time for West Ham – regarding selling players – & an even more worrying time as regards incoming players. I am not convinced by any of the players named as new recruits. Of course, we are now a Championship club & we cannot expect to attract big name players, but I was hoping for a more inspiring list of prospective newcomers than I have seen so far.
Hmmmm….
I agree and yet…
I can see that the funds would potentially allow the purchase of two, or more, younger players with even more potential. Such as the kid from Norway, Engels and maybe even Dju/Parrott.
Dear “Gonzo”,
I understand your concern, but, we’re a “Second Division” Club, as you know, and , “We don’t have to sell” really doesn’t mean “We’re not selling”.
Furthermore, the Club are indeed making a big prot on those players you mention.
It’s too early to judge I would suggest.
⚒️
I think the difference between our transfer strategy and that of say Bournemouth is that whilst they may have acquired young hungry players like Diouf, Fernandes and Summerville, they wouldn’t sell them all in one year and if they did they would already have 3 young and hungry replacements in mind.
Thank Mr Sullivan…
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I did think it odd when you congratulated WH on keeping the core of the team together during the 1st week of August.
We’ll have to wait and see who’s left come 23:01 on the 1st September.
As for players leaving we don’t know for certain which players are actually pushing for moves. I can almost certainly guarantee you ever agent representing a player at WH will have been touting their client around after relegation was confirmed.
If Diouf wants to go then so be it. Wish home luck and all the best, but the lad cannot defend for toffee and would rather have Mayers or Scarles. KWP can play both sides so we have options. £40m would be crazy money and too good to turn down.
Absolutely. Diouf I like, going forward, but, teams that get promoted can defend.
Take the money and run, he is not an elite player, with those funds we can buy Engels and Parrott. I will wish him well, he is a great player with a great attitude though defensively he is a weak link. If we get promoted we can buy a new left back Scarles might improve enough this season to be PL level.
Is Diouf better than Scarlee?
Good money for someone who cannot defend or cross a ball. Most go either out of play or straight to their keeper. There’s better players out there.
Crossing was one thing he was good at I thought.
Yeah one cross out of ten.
exaggerated
Seems to me there’s some silly money being paid this window which we’ve already been beneficiaries of. Forty million for Diouf doesn’t sound bad and in reality he probably wants to move on. People wants us to be more like Brighton and Bournemouth, other than it seems selling players on for a profit…
Fully agree. It sounds like a chunk of those 55,000 season tickets, were mis-sold, based on the promise of NOT selling the family silver.
This is becoming reminiscent of life under Gold and Sullivan, and Brown before them. There seems to be something deep in the soul of the club that can’t shake off that pub team mentality.
Sell. He is not worth 40m. But the worry is, Scarles isn’t a good enough replacement to push for automatic promotion.
Magassa can go also. Very inconsistent.
These players took us down we should remember. Rebuild is required as long as we can keep Bowen, Taty and Mav.
I agree. Scarles doesn’t give us enough going forward. If we use the £40m to secure Engels and a more attacking left back it would be good business IMO. COYI
Sell. He is not worth 40m. But the worry is, Scarles isn’t a good enough replacement to push for automatic promotion.
Magassa can go also. Very inconsistent.
These players took us down we should remember. Rebuild is required as long as we can keep Bowen, Taty and Mav.
Not fussed with Diouf going, £40m for a “project” player is great business when we have someone who arguably has a higher defensive ceiling in Scarles. Also people saying try Diouf as a winger… have you ever seen him take a man on??
I honestly don’t think Diouf was that good. I’d take the 40 million all day long and twice on a Friday.
Whilst Soloman has replaced Summerville before, taking over from Cry, when he transferred to us from Leeds, I really wish Nuno had gone to Diouf and said.. be our left winger.
That would have solved two problems in one, the first that Diouf the defender, doesnt know how to defend and provide us with a left winger who knows how to cross
The change may just have interested Diouf to stay for a season in the Championship,with the promise if we didnt make it, he would go cheaply.
I worry if this guy goes, Katy and Dinos will follow out the door too
It still can work out if the next arrivals include some players like Jordan James in midfield, a decent striker and a young Diouf replacement. But the big sales money is clearly not being reinvested.
Unless we have an in coming player lined up and ready to sign don’t sell is my view. We would gain a little profit out of a player who is an up and coming player at the age we should be looking at. So don’t sell him and buy a thirty something player to replace him, that’s a very backward move!
The only upside identified with Diouf is that we can actually still profit from his well hidden potential. I’ve seen hundreds of players jettisoned from clubs better than him that have barely raised 2 farthings. Cash out more with a good profit and you could literally plunder the 2nd division for an equal level replacement if that’s what we want. He’s that bad.
I think you’re forgetting that we’ve been relegated. Whatever set up a club has, whatever money a club does or doesn’t have, we’re in the Championship. That’s why we can’t adopt the same route as Brighton, who are Premier league. I also don’t remember them building all those great signings with a Recruitment Director who’d been in role for about two weeks. It takes time and consistency. Oh, and we are pretty much doubling what we paid for Diouf – I don’t want him to leave, but if he does, we get the profit and he gets Premier league football – good luck to him!
It seems many haven’t realised we’ve been relegated, and this is not 1978.
Bang on Gonzo. Kretinsky cannot be trusted. Is this the price of paying Bowen, Tatty and Mav huge wages to stay because what’s become crystal clear is the board are betting with our money whilst theirs remains firmly buried deep in their pockets. Next line will be ‘we tried to get you Engles, Parrott and Desasi but …..”
No. They are failing us at every turn. When the family silver is gone, we will be found out.
Now I read we are listening to offers for Magassa. Where will it end?
Sell them all and wind up the club! Put us all out of our misery.
🤣🤣🤣
Very good!
What you’re trying to do is apply a Premier League model to the a Championship side. Judge the transfer window when it is shut, as I and many that don’t churn out this sort of stuff have known all along, the window is so difficult to attact quality in this league, in particular when clubs know we have money to spend and we need patience as the window draws to a close.
As for Diouf? He was pretty awful when he come back from AFCON and the price quoted is a good one for a player that at best guess wants out.
But we don’t have money to spend, not really. All the money from the sales of Fernandes, Somerville and Potts was needed to make us PSR compliant. However, the reported £40 million budget we are said to have should be good enough to bring in what we need to give us the best chance of promotion at our first attempt.
Have you seen anywhere where Diouf has said he wants to stay and commit to a season in the champs? I’ve only seen his agent pushing (gently) for a move back to the prem.
£40m for Diouf is to good to turn down. Our objective this season is to try to get promoted but at the same time keep plenty of cash to recruit 4/5 premier league quality players should we go up.
We have players who can replace Diouf this season scarles , Mayers , AWB.
We have to get smarter with our transfer dealings not listen to the clamour on C&h to buy players who won’t fit the project
This is the brutal reality of relegation. For all we know the player wants to leave & is causing problems. I think we have done well to keep Bowen/Taty etc and if we can get 40million for an overrated LB with a decent cross I say flog him ASLONG as it’s part of a plan to use the money to strengthen elsewhere. Personally think he’s been a liability on several occasions last season.
Gonzo, I feel you are being a tad short sighted here. If we go to the Premier League after this season we will have a lot more money to spend on replacements than we do now. It’s then that these players can be replaced with better versions (or at least as good as in the case of Fernandes and Summerville). We should be good enough to go up with this team and so once back in the promised land the money can be better invested.
Weren’t you all bemoaning, for years, how we are run like a circus? Maybe this is the first step on the ladder of change.
We are not good enough to go up with this team, we are too slow, no MF creativity and need a partner for Taty who scores. Without those we will not even make the play-offs.
Ridiculous, of course we are, we just beat Pompey 3-1 and could have had a couple more and we haven’t even got going yet. You think there are 8 better teams than us in the Championship?!!! Brilliant summation. Who are they out of interest?
You make some good points but what if the player wants to move regardless?
Although he came back late due to the world cup, he has not featured very much which may be an indication he wanted to go.
You can’t force players to stay as it upsets the dressing room!!