West Ham has issued the Club’s Retained List of players, with Pablo Zabaleta, Carlos Sanchez and Jeremy Ngakia all to leave the Club when their respective contracts expire on Tuesday 30th June.
Zabaleta departs after three seasons in which he made a total of 80 appearances, scoring a solitary goal in an FA Cup win at Gillingham in January 2020.
The former Argentina World Cup finalist arrived on a free transfer from Manchester City in the summer of 2017 picking up £70,000 per week.
Unfortunately, an injury has prevented him from accepting the Club’s offer of a short-term extension until the end of the disrupted 2019/20 season.
Carlos Sanchez departs after playing 18 times over the course of two seasons. The Colombia international also reported to be on £70,000 per week suffered a serious knee injury early on in his debut season.
Academy of Football graduate Jeremy Ngakia, who has made five first-team starts in 2020, is also leaving the Club after rejecting the offer a new generous three-year contract.
Jeremy was offered significantly improved terms to reward his breakthrough into the first-team squad this year, along with further contractual enhancements linked to his future progress and success. However, the player and his representatives declined to accept any of the offers, and also turned down a short-term extension until the end of the current season.
The Club say they would like to thank Pablo, Carlos and Jeremy for their service and wish them well in their future careers.
It must be heartbreaking for Zabba to leave the Prem under such circumstances and for the fans not to be able to wish him well after a game.
Won’t be sorry to see any of them leave. Zaba was always committed, and seems like a nice guy. But signing a past-his-peak defender was such a classic West Ham move, which we never seem to learn from. He follows in a line of them: Pearce, Winterburn, Evra etc etc etc.
Many thanks to Zaba although we never saw him in his prime when he was one of the Worlds great wing/ right backs.Unfortunately for West Ham we can only attract this type of player at the end of their career and often do.Its a trend that needs to stop with a ground up rebuild incorporating youth from the lower divisions and our wonderful U23s set up.Attracting top world players as promised by the owners has never looked a more distant dream than now.
Shame to see Zab go but he’s certainly past his prime, all the best to him.
Surprised by Ngakia, he did well the other day and actually stood out from the rest. Just goes to show there’s no loyalty from academies any more.
Sad to see Zaba leave without a send off. Glad that we can’t give Sanchez a send off. Slip out the back door pal – adios, it’s been below average to have you play for us.
And Ngakia? I think you’ve left way to early mate. I think you should have left us in a better way. Wish you luck, but I think you’ve blown a really big chance.