After such an unbelievable transfer window, far and away exceeding even the most optimistic forecasts of money spent, quality of players brought in, sheer drama at times and a growing sense of vicarious pride that ‘our’ West Ham United have recruited some truly world class players, the club is now switching focus to deal with the opposite side of the same coin.
According to Claret and Hugh Associate Editor Sean Whetstone, priorities have now shifted into an equally important but less glamorous side of the window – call it what you will, culling, ‘reducing’, removing the deadwood- in essence trimming the unwanted members of the squad.
Whetstone’s highly placed source at the club made the following brief but frank admission:
The focus is now on getting a few fringe players out to get them off the wage bill and bring in a bit of money. Sadly that is easier said than done, but that is where our attention is.“
Which we all know is a necessary part of football, especially with some of the enormous salaries which players are on: Some are unlikely to find clubs willing to take them on normal sale contracts. Deals agreed years ago come home to haunt the Irons with several of these ‘fringe’ players on well over £100,000 a week – which to you and me is nearly £5 million a year – without the remotest possibility of kicking a ball competitively in the forthcoming season.
No wonder the Board at West Ham want to engineer solutions; Some like Zouma will probably be paid off to save a full years’ salary – others like Ings will need subsidising but hopefully will be seen as a ‘good buy’ at the end of the window when clubs sometimes grab at a player with a Premier League Pedigree if their first choice transfer didn’t materialise.
I’m not totally taken in by the ‘senior source’ though. From all of the rumours abounding, I’d still put a fiver on another new recruit coming through the door at London Stadium before 31 August.
Ings has shown no desire to take pay cut to actually play. Zouma is too crocked for ANY club to take him and Cornet hasn’t remotely shown enough to be attractive to any of the premiership new boys – or anyone investing to come back up.
So that means we may lose Soucek, Aguerd or Mav and to be honest, of those three, I would certainly keep Mav and would ideally keep all three until January.
I believe Zouma has at least shown a willingness to move- albeit unlikely due to fitness. Not much we can about that and was always going to happen as he was @@@@@@ before he even got here. Cornet surprises me as still young enough to reestablish himself somewhere but again maybe on too much money and no personal desire (probably half the reason he does not get a look in). Ings- crazy buy and never made any sense, Villa must be laughing at us. He clearly wants a payoff and then will join somewhere for half the salary greedy @@@@ The Board has to take responsibility for supporting Moyse with these purchases just thank God we didn’t spend 30M on Macquire. Soucek and Aquered make most sense, maybe 40M in the bank and we can get another CB on loan
Would any of us leave our job if you are on a salary that your new employer cannot match what you’re currently earning? of course not.. regarding Ings i have heard he did not want to go to Southampton for football reasons because we had promised to top up the wages they offered to match what he is on now.
And this is why the club have done the sensible thing in getting Tim in and giving him the keys to the safe to stop deals like Ings happening again…it will take time to move players on and at a financial cost but hopefully “Lessons have been learned”
It’s probably harder to move them on because of the toxicity of social media, these players are labelled as crocks, deadwood, useless including by myself, when in reality they were or are great players which is why they commanded those salaries in the first place and sometimes the reason they are viewed negatively can be down to management decisions or systems that don’t suit them leading to them looking poorer than they are. A good percentage of players we have had recently have gone on to be successful elsewhere, definitely wishing these that and hope Tim and their agents can work some magic to find them clubs.
I’d like to think that if the deadwood can’t be moved out then at least this time next year this problem will be a thing of the past. However the extremely long contracts being offered these days to get around PSR could make matters worse where form is lost long term (Kalvin Philips for example, who’d have thought that back in his Leeds days), horrific injuries but not enough to end a career etc. I’m glad it’s not my personal risk, I wouldn’t sleep well.
As long as we don’t get tempted into selling big Tom, hammer of the year 2021 and leading goal scoring midfielder.
RESPECT , RESPECT, RESPECT.
Do you have to use phrases like deadwood , have you ever been deadwood in your career, if you have perhaps you would understand.