Not with a bang, but a whimper: Another of West Ham’s ‘mismatched’ squad players has been sold as the Nuno revolution takes shape – whether there’ll be an upgrade in the last two weeks of the window is now the point of speculation.
The cult hero that is Andrew Irving is a Hammer no more. It was confirmed yesterday that West Ham had struck a deal to sell Irving to Sparta Prague in news of a sale which Claret and Hugh broke last week, for €1.5 million.
Immensely popular and a hard working yet mostly anonymous member of the West Ham squad, Irving has been sold “as his contract was up in the summer …and [his presence in the squad] was holding back progress of some of our academy members’ explained our high-ranking insider at West Ham.
Negligible profit on his transfer since he was bought for a speculative £1.5 million in 2023.
Irving has always seemed something of an enigma; almost a player bought on a whim that never developed, he’s been a brilliant background member of the side and, as seems to be the case with just about every player who departs West Ham, will go onto better things in his next club.
We wish him well.
Would have been good if we got relegated, great attitude and hope he does well at Sparta.
I agree with the comments about Fornals on here, to think he struggled to get into the team under Moyes. Both Fornals and Benrahma were better players for West Ham than Paqueta
Why do you describe him as a cult hero, bit of a loosely flung term If you ask me?
Can’t see the point of this, inexpensive in terms of wages and a solid squad player (gone seem the days of solid squad players). Always did well when brought on, apart for his two starts under Nuno, where lets everyone played badly under NUNO’s crazy line ups. Maybe he wanted to go to enhance of chances of being at the World Cup, but not sure Sparta Prague is the place to do that?
Irving is not a premiership player, I wish him well in the future.. Fullkrug Had no interest playing for the hammers, it appears he is money orientated, Fornals gave 100% on the pitch a trait that’s been lacking with players, one of the reasons we are where we are.
He will probably score now he’s at another club. Just like Fullkrug did for Ac Milan yesterday. By the way Fornals scored a great long range goal for Real Betis too. What I’d give to have a player like him back in the midfield.