West Ham United’s summer transfer window got off the ground last week with the departure of goal keeper Kristian Hegyi and the permanent signing of winger Keiber Lamadrid after a successful half season on loan from Venezuelan side Deportivo La Guaira.
Hardly an auspicious start to a summer rebuild but it is, at least, a start.
The stories surrounding the ‘will he-won’t he sign‘ director of football (or head of recruitment) Steve Nickson continue to rumble on as suggestions now emerge that he wasn’t ‘nailed on’ to join West Ham United after all.
No matter: Whoever Kretinsky plans to appoint to take on this role, this has become probably the single highest priority appointment at the club. Plenty of other fish in the sea but West Ham need to act fast.
Will-he, won’t he: Nickson appears NOT to be the missing piece in the London Stadium jigsaw
Finding the right character to sit ‘alongside’ rather than ‘over’ Nuno is important, as we all know how the Portuguese manager responded to Nottingham Forest’s appointment of Sporting Director Edu to work as Nuno’s boss.
It didn’t end well for the Manager or for ‘Forest and that, frankly, is the last thing West Ham need just now.
Nuno, for better or worse, represents ‘stability’ at the club and for whatever reason, if Nickson wasn’t a good fit then so be it: Better he goes to Wrexham as a supremo- if that is the fact of the matter as some suggested last night.
But West Ham need an appointment now. Not in August, when the season is already up and running. Without a designated head of recruitment, the Hammers are trying to keep their troubled ship afloat in the Championship’s stormy waters without anyone supervising the baling out.
This could prove the first true test of the Kretinsky/Gold alliance: Fancy words are fine but the Hammers need an appointment to oversee the rebuild in this window – preferably starting tomorrow.