West Ham’s board are at least remaining true to their word over player sales. There is a challenging situation evolving over several senior players who, for differing reasons, are linked with summer exits: Castellanos as wanting to quit, Mavropanos as not yet in agreement over a new deal and Malick Diouf the latest to be the subject of a predatory bid.
Diouf – West Ham have proven they’re not interested in flogging off their assets on the cheap
So fans will be pleased to read the reports that Brentford were given short shrift over their ‘almost insulting‘ attempt to nick El-Hadji Malick Diouf, according to the4thofficial.net:
“The Bees are usually sharp in the market. They rarely waste time swinging blindly. Yet their opening offer, likely sitting somewhere around a stingy £15 million to £18 million, was almost insulting.
Why on earth would West Ham take a loss on a 21-year-old talent who just turned in a stellar debut year? It makes zero financial sense. None at all”
Brentford have badly misjudged West Ham’s financial situation, as did others. The good news is that the board are sticking to their statement that financially at least, players don’t need to be sold, especially now the Fernandes and Summerville fees have dealt with the short term cash flow.
However, dealing with player ambition is a whole other challenge and if Brentford return with a second bid, it might not just be the cash that starts to talk. Diouf has always spoken of his ambition to play for a top six club so keeping him will take extraordinary management skills.
Perhaps Nuno has a cunning plan to move him forward, play Scarles in behind him and fix West Ham’s left sided problem. Perhaps not. Either way it’ll take more than an arm round the shoulder to keep the young, ambitious Senegalese happy if Brentford add more cash to their offer. Challenging times for all. As we feared.