Burak Yilmaz
The number of links between West Ham and Turkey and Turkish players has been a major feature of life for Irons supporters over the past few months.
Remember Burak Yilmaz, the 30 year old former Galatasaray stiker who, if we had believed all that came out of the country’s media, was nailed on to wear the claret and blue for a fee of around £15m.
ClaretadHugh wrote at the time that the story was tripe but hey, people believe what they wanna believe and we certainy don’t claim to have a permanent handle on what rumours the fans should accept, although we do have a Rumour Rater which we hope helps!
What we did know however was that nothing coming out of West Ham suggested a deal would ever be done for a player who had hit 30 and had never played in the Premier League.
Gokhan Tore – if we believed all the hype – was on his way to the Irons at anything in advance of £12m upwards until we were told from an insider that the only deal under discussion was a season’s loan. It’s still some way away.
Finally today came the bizarre suggestion that Robin van Persie could be a new arrival from Fenerbahce after scoring 14 goals last season but for the first time a very top insider at the Irons told ClaretandHugh the truth.
That is that the Turkish Super Ligue is poor and the leading goascorers are in the main elderly players whose best years are behind them – as demonstrated by Samuel Eto’o whose official age is given at 35. Says it all really!
ClaretandHugh Facebook Group member Mark Wiseman wrote today when the RVP story broke: “The Turkish league is very poor, I live in Turkey and see enough of it. As for Van Persie, his legs have completely gone. Fenerbahce fans want rid of him, he was terrible last season.”
Of course with the manager Slaven Bilic having been manager at Besiktas it’s very easy to link him to various Turkish based players. Easy but incorrect and misleading.
It also does the boss a disservice and leaves the impression he has limited knowledge of players outside of Turkey, which we know is a nonsense.
So my tip as we go into the transfer window is to give stories of the club doing the Turkey trot for players a big swerve – we are a bit bigger than that these days.
It’s a waste of time trying to do any type of deal with Besiktas,they just mess you about.I would suspect most Turkish teams are the same.However,with the like of Bashuayi,Lacazette,Bacca,Zaza,Niang,Icardi,Janssen and now seemingly Palace are even beating us to th leftovers ie Benteke.Gomez at age 31 again with Turkish links and RVP-god forbid.Perayra going to Watford,Meunier going to PSG.Anybody want to come to a forward thinking club in a new stadium (I hear with a 66,000 capacity) with ambitions of making the CL following the Europa League.What’s wrong with West Ham?Unless you’ve got something sensible to say don’t bother responding.
If the board didnt hang about trying to nick a bargain we could have landed Batshuayi or Icardi ages ago. They have to face facts, the world knows that theres ridiculous money in the prem and they are whacking up their prices for players. Do you think chelsea really wanted to spend 40 mil on Batshuayi? No but they know thats the price prem teams have to pay now. The sooner the board realise that the sooner we’ll get a good striker. And why on earth they didnt go all out for van der weil at RB ….
Bashuayi – wanted champions league now
Lacazette – also wants CL
Bacca – I don’t know
Zaza – after last nights shootout!
Niang – bad reputation
Icardi – don’t know
Janssen – wants to play for Spurs
Last summer this board and manager brought in Payet, Lanzini and Ogbonna.
Previously brought in Kouyate and Sakho.
Already they have brought in Nordveit and Feghouli. Two top class players who would have cost the best part of £30m between them if they were not out of contract.
I think we should cut the club some slack and not panic
Nice one! DS brought in a load of winners last summer (and no turkeys? I can’t think of any….even Slaven’s choice of Jelavic was coming good!)…Antonio signed on LAST DAY of the window and look how brilliant he has been.
Gold has told everyone to be patient.
Sure, I was worried about no mention of RB (because no RB = waste of Antonio), but, hey, you know what? I’m going to trust DS + Bilic to know how + when to pull levers, create smoke screens etc etc
That said, I would love to see Janssen at WHU…
Quite frankly this summer is all about Payet. It’s already screamingly obvious again that top strikers look at us as if we have the plague and if our owners don’t find a way to keep Payet any talk of us being a top club will just get another guffaw.
Sounds like you have a recipe for a right royal PANIC. Just don’t ask me to join in…
Can someone please start a Giggsy for WHU rumour? It fits, yeah? We could do with an out and out winger, and he is a proven winner. What do you reckon?