In what has been a frenetic day of breaking news for West Ham, the identity of the player to be offered as a makeweight for Jhon Duran has been revealed.
It must be stressed that these are only rumours, and as ever, C&H will seek clarification via our top club source. However, it seems the ‘young player’ being used to sweeten the deal for Colombian striker Duran is none other than Lewis Orford.
Fabrizio Romano revealed a transfer deal between Aston Villa and West Ham was close, with a Ā£30m transfer fee being agreed in addition to a ‘young player’ moving in the other direction.
It now appears that the player is 18-year-old midfielder Orford, who has been impressing for the Hammers in pre-season. The young playmaker has been tipped by many to make the breakthrough to the Hammers first team this season. Whilst signing a striker is a huge priority for The Hammers, this swap will be bittersweet for many West Ham fans.
We will, of course, seek to verify this rumour as soon as possible.
Shocking! How can they justify selling young Orford down the river, without him having a say in the matter!?
Not worth the deal. Ā£30m is too much for a gamble, when we need a week-in, week-out 20+ goals a season striker.
Durans behaviour and bad attitude isnt exactly filling me with confidence in the deal either.
Talk about a huge mistake
DON’T PANIC ..they want ings back .
Just clickbait, why is everyone getting so worked up?
Why the hell would we give them cash and orford for a player who hasn’t proved himself .Orford looks quality and deserves a chance.Plus if you were Orfords advisor why would you push him in going to a champions league side Where’s he’s not going to get anywhere near the squad.Hes got a much better chance of breaking through with us
All our young talent being given away! How about getting rid of Brady, 2 million a year saved. Spend that on players. Sullivan still ruling over everyone š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
Why oh why are we sacrificing our talented youth – can we not have both ???? Itās not just monetary investment that yields results . You reap what you sow !
I agree with Val. Why not just pay the extra cash? However, this could be part of a scheme whereby WHU avoid accumulating costs for players due to new financial rules or it is saving face for AVFC and their evaluation of Duran or both. Time will tell if this rumour is true and, if so, critically how much Orford is valued at. I hope it is not part of a new trend where young players, of flexible value due to varying opinions of potential, are traded in order to keep the balance sheet within FA rule limits.
I sometimes wonder if people see the same academy products as I do.
With rare exceptions I see them not make premier league starter standard wherever it is that they end up. They go to places like WBA, Newcastle, Watford and Leeds only to disappear.
Sometimes one will pop up for a season with Burnley before going straight back down again, the lower leagues are full of them. The academy is not a reliable source of first team players.
That said I can’t get too exercised about Lewis Orford if he were to be used as a makeweight in bringing a definitely first team quality player in. If it’s true and if it was likely to work then it seems a no brainer to me.
40million was the asking price before all this make way bollocks with one our young players
Are we that hard up we cant pay the extra 10million and keep our own youth player
Sorry this club is joke and we will never become a club pushing for champions league with these sort of transfer deals
This is a disgrace. Typical West Ham move. “The academy of football” should be moved from all things west ham because it’s embarrassing. When are we going to bring these “wonderkids” through?
Villa seem to run their club like a top top club. They’re pulling our pants down over this transfer. They make shrood moves in the market, bring in quality and make profit on players.
We on the other hand, over spend, sell them for pitence and continually have our pants pulled down.
We won the europa conference and instead of progressing we went back and Villa flew up to 4th position by building a solid spine with a quality striker and adding quality to the squad. Why have we failed to do this? So frustrating. When I started supporting this club as a kid we was known for producing the likes of Rio, Defoe,Carrick, Lampard and getting them in the team. Other than Rice who do we even try to promote?
Didn’t Orford reject a contract extension.. no point keeping someone that doesn’t want to be here…
Did Orford reject a contract extension, no point keeping someone that doesn’t want to be here…
Is this a story invented by media to draw comments?
Needs to be clarified.
Headline reports him as being a ‘wonder kid’, as associated with a number of Brazilians.
As stated buying him would be minimal at the moment.
If whu are desperate for Duran pay extra and keep Orford.
It’s unjust to use him as a bargaining tool.
A further thought. In recent years thereās been much hype about our club being huge, massive, XXXL etc. I ask myself if this is about to happen would one of the clubs we all want West Ham to aspire to offer one of their more likely to breakthrough as a makeweight to save on paying a small percentage of a transfer fee? I find it hard to imagine.
How much is Orford being valued at ? Unless it is over the Ā£10 million mark, then just pay the extra. For the sake of a million or 2, I would rather give all our youngsters an opportunity at West Ham. I do think Duran could be a great signing, but for the risk of selling one of our most promising graduates, then we should say no & pull the plug. If we had a buy back for a low amount, but quite frankly if we were willing to let him go, can’t see him wanting to come back. Just add another 5% to the sell on & have no players going the other way. We should be in the driving seat, with Villa having a player that is desperate to leave, so pull out & make them sweat it out.
All of these views are legitimate, & I agree with all of them. We donāt know if it will happen, so I will wait & see. But, I am bemused & saddened by the whole scenario. Do we really need to lose one of our āhopes for the futureā, wouldnāt it be better to keep him & pay more for Duran, would he make it at West Ham anyway. Who knows ? But, it saddens me that we are prepared to lose a player of Orfordās promise. Then again, I am prepared to admit that the new manager etc knows more than me about football & footballers & can assess the potential of the youngsters better than I can. But, I really donāt want to see Orford, or any of the other promising youngsters go. Why is it that West Ham can never, apparently, transfer a player (in or out) without all of this nonsense. And, why is it so hard being a West Ham supporter ?
Spot on and couldnāt agree more mate
I sincerely hope this is a rumour that has no connection with reality whatsoever. Maybe Duran would be amazing for us and maybe he wouldnāt. Duran according to many Villa fans has a terrible attitude and is a punt in any case. As a parent Iād hate to have my boy used in this way, Iād be furious.
I get losing a young player isn’t great but we had this outrage before and how many of those kids made it. I think reacenty only diaganna has been half successful at wba the rest have either left the clubs and done nothing of note
Perhaps we can buy Lewis back for Ā£30m plus Duran in a couple of years? What message does this give to our whole Academy?
I’ll wait for an official announcement for getting annoyed.
No no no absolutely ridiculous what has happened to the new dawn with youngsters being given a chance . Same old same old West ham no ambition no chance for the youths and we will end up trying to buy him back for 40 million in a couple of years time. Mark my words.
This seems like an ok deal to me, if indeed it even is a deal; no under-21 player since Dec has made it, aside from Johnson who went on a free because nobody wanted to pay for him before his last year for us. Orford hasn’t had the acclaim of a Dec, Johnson, Diangana or even Mubama. If J-Lo doesn’t see something in him, a manager that managed Real Madrid and Spain, then we have to believe his eyes over ours.
100% agree.
There is an awful lot of people looking at our youth players through rose tinted glasses.
In addition Orford will have his own agent and no one know what is happening behind the scenes.
Fact is no one knows. The downside of online news is there is so much of it which just adds to the frustration of many fans especially give 95% of it is made up.
All.i can say is,Duran better be worth it
Can’t say I’ve seen Orford play so hard for me to judge. I assume JLo doesn’t see a future for him on why he’s seen in pre season.
Spoke to my mate yesterday who’s a season ticket holder at Ajax. From what he tells me Brobbey would have been a decent shout and cheaper. He doesn’t want to lose him but he knows he’ll be off this season
This has got to be BS, Iām not having any of it. Mischief making of the highest order whoever broke this one.
No guts, no Idea, no plan no baxxs.NO MONEY š°
Itās a bad deal for me if you canāt afford the asking price than move on to someone else. Really disappointed if this go through
Has anyone ever heard of an U21 squad player being used as a makeweight in a first team transfer before ? It’s a new one on me.
This stuff is just too wild for me to bother commenting on it further than that.
Why is nothing ever straightforward when it comes to buying and selling player’s at WHU. Really disappointing that one of the academy player’s is unnecessarily part of the deal and I hope he’s given the opportunity to decide for himself if it’s best for him. This isn’t reflecting on well on the club and particularly Mark Nobles involvement or not when home grown player’s are used as collateral, shameful if this is indeed the case but we’ll have to see what transpires.
What is the point of our academy? Didnāt we get told that J-Lo would be giving our youth a chance?
We are raising season ticket and seat prices so that we apparently can be more competitive in the transfer market.
Fans just getting sold lie after lie.
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Madness and always giving vast sums of money to Villa No one else would pay over 20 million for Duran and not even half of what we paid for Ings
Why do we keep losing our youngsters its not worth it he’s not worth 30mil so Why are we given him to villa
This deal is a joke. DurƔn is overrated and a gamble. Rather we kept Orford as well.
As a Villa fan I can say Duran is trouble. Attitude stinks. Feels he’s better than he is.
I donāt like this idea one bit. Duranās talent is genuine but his attitude is an issue. Itās one thing to waste money on a player, but giving up potential for potential seems redundant.
Perhaps they sew earthy as the one that will make it?….
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Itās always hard with a young player like Orford to know whether heāll make the step up from outstanding youth to quality premier league player but it does look like heāll stand a really good chance. Iād much rather keep someone who has come up through the ranks than use him as a makeweight in a deal for someone who will either be a flop or a success that pushes for a move in 12 months
Bad bad move