Less than six per cent of 2,000 West Ham supporters taking part in a Claret And Hugh think the Austrian striker should be sold for less than £50m and over 25% of those polled believe the club should only accept a bid of £70m or more to let their top goal scorer leave this winter.
The poll follows a story by Talksport earlier this week that an unnamed Chinese club had bid £35m for Arnie only to be rejected by the club. Arnautovic’s brother confirmed the report yesterday by releasing his own statement yesterday asking the club to accept the offer which was quickly followed by a club statement saying Arnie is not for sale and they expect him to honour his contract.
Yesterday C&H revealed that the bid was actually 35 million Euros which is around £31.7m and Stoke City would receive 20% of that as part of a sell on clause meaning the Hammers would receive just over £25m.
We asked supporters for their valuation of Arnautovic should he be allowed to leave.
Just over 1% would accept £35m with a similar number (1.6%) accepting £40m, just over 3% would accept £45m.
Nearly 19% would accept £50m with 9% accepting £55m and 20% wanting £60m
Over 7% want £65m with 25% wanting £70m or more, the remaining 14% would not sell at any price.
Full results: Votes 2,000 £35m 1.09%, £40m 1.67%, £45m 3.18%, £50m 18.65%, £55m 8.91%, £60m 20.31%, £65m 7.24%, £70m or above £25.26, Not at any price 13.7%
To replace him would cost us £50m. That means having to sell for £62.5m, so that we can pay Stoke their 20%. Chinese clubs have to pay the Chinese government 100% of the fee paid to the selling club, meaning it will cost them £125m, or at the current exchange rate, €139m…
If I was the board, I’d tell Arnie’s weasel of a brother that if he’s so desperate to land his brother in some tin-pot league so he can win a trophy everyone will laugh at, he needs to stop talking to us and fly to China to convince them of the merits of paying €139m for his prized cash cow. That, or shut his mouth.
I absolutely back the club’s position. If, a week after he was slapping the badge, he now wants to slap West Ham round the face, then he can rot in the U23s and be paid accordingly. Nobody is above our club and Payet will be the last time we were mugged off. Daniel Levy wouldn’t stand for it, so why should we?
Well we had all this fighting talk over Payet & we know how that ended. You have to ask yourself who benefits from turning down a lot of money to play him in the U23 side for six months? Would that make you feel better about things? Not me….the phrase ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’ comes to mind.
He is nearly 30 & will probably go for less in the summer. He is not the future of this club. My only objections are not good footballing reasons. I think it would not do much for morale – of the team or the supporters. Also our record in the transfer market tells me the money would not be well spent, especially if we panic buy in January. So I would prefer some sort of compromise deal under which he is sold but is loaned back to us until the summer. My guess is the owners will dig their heels in to avoid annoying the fans & then get rid in the summer. Not good footballing decision making either.