Crystal Palace Raid Exposes David Sullivan’s West Ham Legacy

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.

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.