By Hughie Southon

The failure to buy players in January is a factor in the Hammers poor start to the season and one that may have affected our failure in last season’s Europa Cup.

Tony Cottee has revealed to ClaretandHugh in an exclusive blog that bringing in eight players in the summer is clearly having an effect on form and that winter buys would have helped .

Whether that was solely the manager’s decision, or that there wasn’t the money to do so he’s not sure. but he accepts that results will need to improve if David Moyes is not to come under big pressure following Qata,

He declared: We all know the team needed strengthening and it should have been done in January. When you bring so many in obviously there is going to be issues with settling in at a personal and professional level.”

He believes the board have it right in allowing the manager to see whether the money he spent on players works out.

He said: “That is spot on, and David will know that he will come under pressure if results don’t improve.

“It’s a results game and he knows that better than anybody but he certainly has enough credit in his bank to be given more time although with social media being what it is things will never be easy.”

However, January was an opportunity missed and one that may well have affected us in Europe last season besides this campaign.”