ONE BY ONE the midfield targets associated with a move to West Ham seem to be getting cherry-picked as the Irons stall, reportedly waiting for the Lucas Paquetá inquiry to publish its verdict before deciding on a move for an alternative midfielder. The trouble is, competing sides have no such constraints and it seems there’s not a day goes by without news of another Hammers-shortlisted player being snapped up.
In case you missed it amidst the Callum Wilson furore on Friday, one time Hammers midfield target Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was reported as being the subject of a bid from Fulham, according to Ben Jacobs on twitter:
“Fulham have made a formal approach to sign Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Chelsea. It follows an enquiry from West Ham earlier in the window.”
Dewsbury- Hall was rumoured to be one of the makeweights offered by Chelsea as part of their unsuccessful Mohammed Kudus negotiations. What is evident is that the going price is way over West Ham’s price bracket, as the journalist with talksport claims :“Would need to be more than the £30m that Chelsea paid to Leicester”.
Another one off the list, then: Since all of the Irons’ homegrown targets seem to be £30 million or well over, more than likely the Hammers will shop abroad – if they ever get up to full speed.
Kiss goodbye to any lingering hopes for McAtee or Elliott, it seems. Paquetá and Earthy, anyone?
Elliot should be our main priority and if we can do a deal Morton as well ! These are the type of signings that will get the west ham fans on side again
And still we wait for the formal Paqueta verdict. Annoyingly the FA has still said FA!!
With bidding for quite ordinary players now in mega millions football is in danger of pricing itself out of the reach of it’s support. I can’t see how this can continue.
Big difference between Elliott and Dewsbury Hall is that Elliott would potentially be worth alot more in a few years whereas at around 30 years old Dewsbury Hall wouldn’t be. Would be surprised if Fulham could pay the asking price, like us probably hoping for a loan later in the window
Been thinking that for years Nigel. The bubble must burst eventually. But all the while Sky & others pay a fortune to screen live games, then maybe not
I dont really buy the “wauting for Paqueta outcome” argument, he either stays (and our midfield is like last year, or he leaves and we need (even) more creativity in our midfield.
We can only have 1 slow midfielder on the pitch (Alvares, Ward-Prowse, Guido, Soucek), so we are in need of atleast 1 more to replace/upgrade Soler.
Maybe they intend to keep him as they might only get £30m for him? He’s brilliant at his best which he could well recapture when he hasn’t the tribunal hanging over him.
It’s unlikely they’d find a better player for £30m.
👆🏾Why sell Paquetta when a World Cup is on the horizon? He will play well just to make the team. There is no need to sell unless West Ham are desperately cash strapped and they are not having not spent all the Kudus money. Some promising youngsters are coming through the academy like Potts, Earthy and Fearon but they need to gather experience and be guided by experienced professional midfielders like Paquetta. West Ham also need to be very careful. It seems to me that they may be flirting with relegation. Right now they are weak in every department including that of the goalkeeper. The West Ham Board don’t seem very clever at all.Their transfer decisions in recent years proves this fact.
I wouldn’t make light of Paqueta and Earthey – a Brazilian international cleared of wrongdoing at the club who stood by him and an academy graduate who won young player of the year on loan at Bristol hungry for premier league first team football.
Definitely need another in there but it could be a lot worse.
Potts if Elliot’s not possible
Oh you so know how to cheer me up on a Monday afternoon, Martin. What I do think is that we won’t get away this season with being as bad as we were the last one, and yet he we are a couple of weeks away from the start of the season with a weaker team as is. Sure this is not the excitement Potter was promised.