West Ham have again denied that Issa Diop is on the move!
A new story emerged earlier today claiming that we would want £60 million plus Anthony Martial for the Hammers to even consider the possibility.
But our most senior source in the club immediately slapped down the story reported by The Independent declaring by e mail: “We simply aren’t interested in selling Issa – his future is with us. Martial is not on our agenda.”
The story has been rumbling along for several days and the Hammers have denied they have any interest in doing business at every stage.
But the Martial angle, and claim that talks had been held, put a new twist on it and needed to be checked out which we did immediately.
There have been regular reports from “sources” claimed to be close to him that the player wants to play Champions League football at some stage whilst remaining happy at West Ham.
It would be a surprise if he didn’t want to but in their present condition that may well not have been with Manchester United anyway – a team currently in serious need of rebuilding.
We have to keep these guys bought into the West Ham plan (assuming there is one) if we’re going to progress, and that ultimately comes down to aggressive player recruitment and retention. That’s not just about money, but about ambition too… Okay, it’s ultimately about money…!
The most helpful thing would be for the player to use his Twitter account and simply say,
“I am very happy at West Ham and looking forward to meeting my new teammates when we resume training, in preparation for the new season.”
End of
I doubt there are many players at Manchester United who we would want and those that we would, they wouldn’t want to sell or the player wouldn’t want to join us. Looking at wages alone, I should imagine most if not all of the first team are on close to 100k p/w or vastly more. We’re looking to bring our squad age and wage bill down so I can’t see anybody worth doing a deal for.
Makes sense, interesting twist but there is an aspect of Martial wages here as well. Not sure where he sits now but likeliy above our top earner considering he was the late and only summer purchase United did back when.
Objectives for the short/medium term:
Keep our best players, recruit wisely, finish above ManU.