Hammer Jarrod Bowen has revealed he turned his phone off blanking family and friends on transfer deadline day signing his contract at 10.50pm with just 10 minutes to go to the deadline.
Bowen told Sky Sports he ignored friend and family when he travelled over to Leeds for his West Ham medical. And he ignored them again during his long evening train journey to London, when the clock was ticking down and the move was still hanging in the balance. Bowen was met by a West Ham employee when he train pulled in at London’s Kings Cross station and was immediately transported by car to the London Stadium to complete the deal.
“Even my mum,” Bowen told Sky Sports “I felt so bad blanking her, but I didn’t want to tell her anything in case nothing happened. As soon as I signed the contract, about 10 minutes before the deadline, I got straight on the phone to her, then to my mates. I had a lot of replying to do. Actually, I’ve only just got to the back-end of it now.”
“It all happened quite quickly. I think the West Ham bid arrived on Thursday evening, so I woke up on Friday excited to see what the day brought. I knew there had been other teams interested in January, but West Ham were the only ones that I knew had put a concrete offer in. The others, like Crystal Palace, came from nowhere a little bit and I wasn’t aware that they had actually made an official bid.”
“In the end, it was a no-brainer to join West Ham, but I still needed to take five minutes to myself because it’s a big moment for anyone to move club, especially off the pitch when it involves moving to a big city. You’ve got to take every single factor into consideration because it’s a big decision in your life. It’s one that I’ve made now and I’m very happy.”
It was a “no brainer” once he had agreed a huge wage so that if we got relegated, 50% would still leave him on c.£40,000 per week with a £20m release clause
I would probably leave it till 10 minutes before the deadline, but I’m sure him signing was never really in doubt.
It’s the clauses within the contract that I think is typical of our owners who have a small mentality, which goes to show that they have ownership of something which is far too big for them to handle or comprehend. Bowen will STILL be worth more than £20M come the end of the season………. and IF we STILL go down…… He can STILL score goals in the Championship, which will be needed to get us up at the First attempt.
Small mentality IDIOT OWNERS!
Jarrod is exactly the type of player we need to beat the drop, and exactly the type of player we’ll need if we do drop and need to bounce back – in that event, I’d like to think we’ll do what we can to keep the players we’ll need. We’ll only succeed if the team show they’re up for the fight, and that’ll be more likely if we get behind them. I’m really pleased to see Kevin Nolan at the club. If he can help provide confidence and steely determination, we may just do this.
If both new boys shine for us and we stay up I think we will lose them both anyway in the summer. £20 million release clause PL clubs will snap them up at that price.
The release clause only applies of relegated