By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
West Ham midfielder Soungoutou Magassa is in talks with Crystal Palace over a permanent move to South London, and I’ll be disappointed to see him go.
West Ham have already made significant savings on wages and generated substantial money through player sales this summer. If Magassa is the latest departure, I’d certainly hope to see that money reinvested into Nuno Espírito Santo’s squad.
In this video, I discuss the potential Magassa transfer and why Crystal Palace’s interest highlights a rather humbling reality for West Ham.
Palace are now cherry-picking West Ham
This follows Axel Disasi turning down the opportunity to return to the Hammers following his successful loan spell last season, instead choosing Palace.
West Ham had spent much of the summer waiting for Disasi, only to see a player who had already experienced life at the London Stadium decide his future was elsewhere.
Now Palace are attempting to take Magassa too.
When David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady arrived at West Ham, Palace were a Championship club.
Now we’re watching them potentially cherry-pick one of our players while persuading another to choose Selhurst Park over a return to West Ham.
That’s pretty humbling.
Potts & Magassa modelled the new West Ham shirt and neither will be playing for the club this season
Sullivan must take responsibility
For me, David Sullivan’s legacy isn’t the Conference League triumph. It’s how many clubs West Ham have allowed to overtake us during his tenure.
Sullivan has now been removed as West Ham chairman, but the consequences of the way the club has been run haven’t disappeared with him.
Crystal Palace are a particularly uncomfortable comparison.
How did Sullivan oversee huge debt, relegation and make Palace more attractive destination than West Ham?
How have we reached the stage where Palace can potentially cherry-pick our players and convince somebody who played successfully for us last season that Selhurst Park represents the better option?
I think Sullivan has to take a huge amount of responsibility for that.
Don’t think this is a good move by Mougassa be interesting to see how many games he will get for Palace think he would have got more experience at WHU he is going to just fill in for Cup games with palace he was better off to stay where he was
Don’t think this is a good move by Mougassa be interesting to see how many games he will get for Palace think he would have got more experience at WHU he is going to just fill in for Cup games with palace he was better off to stay where he was
Dont think this is a good move by Mougassa be intresting to see how many games he will get for Palace think he would have got more experience at WHU he is going to just fill in for Cup games with palace he was better off to stay put
Sullivan’s legacy is certainly dreadful. But apart from Summerville & Fernandez, both too good for the Championship, all or most of the tranfers out seem to be players not good enough for the Championship. I would include Magassa in that. The recruitment in recent years has been mostly shocking and the club is now trying to sort it out. Palace must think they can develop Magassa in a way that West Ham have not. It’s been said many times that there are smaller but much better run clubs in the PL :- Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Palace etc. West Ham now has to become one of the well run clubs. It it can then considering its size and resources it should be able to eclipse all of those. But right now West Ham is where it belongs.
Regards running a club, we all know this is one of the worst and for a long time. In addition to which we’ve had a long string of disastrous managers going back to Avram Grant, with a too brief exception or two. Crystal Palace deserve their success, good luck to them. If sort out boardroom and have a progressive managerone day, we’ll sportingly wave to them as we pass them by on the way up!!😁
As regards Magassa this is a clear out by the manager of young players to be replaced with those of his own choosing, it is as simple as that. NES is in charge, DK is busy and Koppen is a director of recruitment, not DOF,l which must mean reduced responsibilities & more freedom to decide for NES.
Under NES I personally fear for the Academy and its best players, because it is not working but in the cozy environment of ex-players looking after it, nobody is doing anything innovative to change things, while NES is not that interested in developing players of potential – also he can’t as he has promised to bounce back in one season which is a licence to hire and fire at will. You can debate whether Academy at fault for not having more Championship ready players, or whether manager should give them the time and chance to progress at WHU.
NES is obviously not a great manager, has ongoing feuds with various senior players, does not develop youngsters enough and has limitations & blind spots tactically. This squad is strong for the Championship though and so he’ll be safe this season (unless players stop playing for him) while fans will have to put up with it.
I predict we end up in the playoffs playing Millwall and then anything goes. However, team could down tools, NES throw points away and yet another London rival gives us a 2-fingered salute as Millwall are promoted (the stuff of nightmares!).
While the club have said that we should ignore the boardroom struggles I am sure that player’s agents tell their players “don’t go to West Ham because we’re not sure who will be in charge in 3 months” – and if Stavely takes control I’m sure that Nuno will be replaced by Eddie Howe
I’m also sorry to see Magassa leave – but as I’ve said on here before one poor game (away vs Wolves) and Nuno seemed to write him off
Which is typical for a young player, to be a bit up and down. Magassa is obviously a youngster with a hell of a lot of potential and in my opinion this is simply a clear out by the manager – nothing more nor less.
Our fans will keep us down this year, the same way they took us down last season. I can’t think of worse fans than ours.
Arrogant mug .
Arrogant mug
Palace have been a better run club than us without a doubt. Don’t forget they have had alot of their best players ‘cherry picked’ by others. Olise, Eze, Gheui, Lacroix are great talents to loose but remain competitive. Recruitment is so key, we heve wasted eye watering amouts in recent years. Success can’t be forced it needs to be built. Disasi is a shame but if Magassa goes, midfield options of Engels, Kane, Orford should still excite us. Still alot to be hopeful about.
This column makes it sound as though West Ham are Real Madrid and Palace are Accrington Stanley lol.
Yes, you are technically a bigger club than us and the era of the 60’s and legacy’s of Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst etc is very special. But in my lifetime (and I’m 45) Palace and West Ham have been very similar clubs. Yes you have a larger fan base but not of the gulf you guys think.
I’ve genuinely felt sorry for your fans when I think of you haveing an amazing ground at Upton Park and being moved to that souless bowl of an athletics stadium which is too big for you and impossible to create an atmosphere with Scattered empty seats, way to many tourists and school kids given tickets for free to make it look more full.
After two administrations and being held back by 30’s years of not being able to expand our stadium finally the main stand is underway and on completion in 2 years our capacity will be 36k. Still a lot smaller than yours but will 9k currently on Season ticket waiting list and rising, Give me a fully noisy 36k stadium over what you now have every day of the week.
Gold and Sullivan were looking at Palace before that brought West Ham and thank god that chose the “bigger club” then lol.
Anyway, you’ll be back next season and hopefully a little more humble and realising that’s not the gulf between our clubs you seem to think.
We can sit and pout about the last 18 months all we like, but simply put, Palace are a better side than West Ham. Will it stay that way? Probably not, but for now that is the truth. That said, I don’t think Magassa has exactly excelled since his arrival, so I won’t be too concerned about his departure, no more than the departure of half the academy. The real issues are the behaviour of the board members and the coach. When the board gets its act together and Nuno has moved on, then we will probably be better than Palace again.
Our squad has massively changed since the ones that qualified for and played in Europe just a few years ago. Haven’t said that, promotion this season alongside a club takeover can reverse the situation just as quickly and put us in a better position than five years ago. With Sullivan gone, the club will most certainly be run as it should be, regardless of who owns the largest share of the pie. The future is brighter than many are believing.
Yes, exactly
Besides,it not exactly cherry picking either is it??!
Come on the Palace!!
Mougassa never really looked a Premiership player; not a good athlete unlike Kante. Better to sell him & develop Kante & Orford. Also like to see Fearon given more of a chance after shining in pre-season 12 months ago.
Roger, Your spot on with Fearon
To be fair to Palace they have won the FA Cup, Charity Shield and European Conference League in recent seasons